


In the Quiet

by HomuraBakura



Series: Halloween Specials [5]
Category: Yu-Gi-Oh! Zexal
Genre: Aliens, Body Horror, Eye Horror, Gen, Halloween, Horror, Illusions, Monsters, Nonbinary Character, Outer Space, Science Fiction
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-03
Updated: 2017-10-31
Packaged: 2018-12-26 21:52:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 27
Words: 46,774
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12067689
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HomuraBakura/pseuds/HomuraBakura
Summary: In the wake of Astral and Barian worlds being reformed, small fragment worlds are still floating in the space between spaces.  Astral receives a strange distress call from one of them, and asks Yuma and his friends to accompany zir to check it out.But what should be just a quick check and rescue mission quickly becomes a nightmare when the ship suddenly stalls and shuts down--leaving them trapped in space with something dangerous now stalking the corridors of their ship...





	1. Absolute Magnitude

“Hang on!!”

Yuma tightened his grip around Tetsuo's shoulders as the skateboard underneath them soared straight off the top of the stairs. Tetsuo grinned madly, wind streaking past them. He kicked the skateboard up under his feet, hit the railing, and a loud, painful screech pealed out from under them as they slid down the railing. If not for Yuma's grip, he would certainly have been jostled off when they hit the ground, but Tetsuo managed to grab behind him and hold Yuma steady while Yuma regained his own feet on top of the skateboard.

The whoop ripped out of Yuma's throat and Tetsuo laughed.

“Would you guys please just ride one at a time like normal people?” Kotori yelled from somewhere behind them.

“No way!” Yuma shouted back over his shoulder, dizzy with the hype.

Tetsuo grinned again and pushed off on the skateboard with Yuma still clinging behind him.

Heartland City glowed about them. The sun was starting to set, earlier than normal. Fall was on its way, Yuma thought, smelling the faint change in the air already. Soon, winter would be on them, and they wouldn't be able to skate to school through the snow.

The world zoomed past on either side of them until Tetsuo finally screeched to a stop at the top of the stairs, leading down into Heartland Park.

“Thank you for flying Tetsuo Airlines,” Tetsuo said, grinning as he lightly shoved Yuma off.

Yuma laughed, but he hadn't gotten his land legs back yet and immediately went tumbling down to his butt. He scrambled back up and tried to shove Tetsuo over next, but he only flopped uselessly against his friend's waist.

“No fair, Tetsuo, I can't push you over that easy,” he said.

Tetsuo just stuck out his tongue at him.

“Git gud, scrub,” he said.

Yuma laughed and shoved Tetsuo again. He managed to get the boy to take a step back, but that was it, and Tetsuo just grinned as he shoved Yuma back again.

“What are you two even doing?” Kotori said.

“I believe this is called male bonding, nya,” Cathy said, in a fake documentary voice.

Yuma grinned—the others had caught up pretty fast, considering how fast he and Tetsuo had been going.

Kotori hopped down the stairs to meet Yuma and Tetsuo, hugging the Duel Disk to her chest gingerly. Cathy was right behind her, already wearing her Duel Disk and D-Gazer. She smoothed out the ruffles of her black dress, tugging at the ribbon around her neck.

“In other words, to summarize, they're being their normal ridiculous selves,” Todoroki said from behind Cathy.

“What's wrong with being a little ridiculous?” Yuma said. “Anyway come on!! It's gonna get dark soon and my sister will get mad at me for staying out, let's get a few duels in!!”

“Hang on, aren't we missing someone?” Kotori said, looking around. “Where'd Tokunosuke go?”

Cathy shrugged.

“Purrobably disappeared on his own again,” she said. “Just furget it, he'll turn up.”

“Oy! What took you nerds so long?”

Yuma turned around, squinting to scour the park for the source of the voice. It didn't take him long to locate the long shadow that belonged to Ryoga. He was faintly scowling, as usual, his arms folded—in stark contrast to the boy next to him, who was bouncing lightly on his heels with a huge smile over his face.

“III!” Yuma said, feeling his face light up as he ran across the space.

Mihael laughed as he met Yuma's hug.

“Hey, no one told me you were coming by!” Yuma said.

“Last minute decision,” Mihael said, smiling. “Ryoga-kun came past our place and I asked him what was up; I thought I'd come and say hi!”

“Can you stay for some dueling?” Yuma asked, pumping his fists.

“Of course!”

Besides them, the park was mostly empty. There was a group picking up the remains of their picnic blanket in the background, and the faraway sound of a baseball bat cracking against a ball in the baseball diamonds. Besides that, however, most of the commotion of the city had faded away to the buildings, leaving the park emptying and quiet in the face of the sunset.

“We've only got like...what...two hours before your sister starts calling you?” Tetsuo said. “Let's get started!”

Kotori edged closer to Yuma then, biting her lip.

“Um,” she said. “Can I just watch you first?”

She still hadn't put on her new Duel Disk yet—he was honestly still surprised that she had ended up buying one at all. It had been a big surprise this morning when he had seen it poking out of her school bag. She seemed embarrassed for some reason by it, but Yuma was just super excited that Kotori was going to duel with them now! He couldn't wait to play some games with her and see what kind of deck she had built for herself.

“Sure! But don't be nervous, Kotori, really!”

“Oh? Kotori-chan, are you going to be dueling with us today, too?” Mihael asked.

Kotori flushed.

“I dunno, I think I'll just watch for a bit first,” she said. “I just thought—I don't know.”

Yuma patted her shoulder.

“It's fine, Kotori, you'll be fine! Remember how bad I was?? You'll be great!”

“Yeah, you've already seen Yuma make all the stupid mistakes, so you know what not to do,” Ryoga said.

“Hey!”

That actually got a giggle out of Kotori, which was better than that nervous face she was making. Well, even if it was at his expense, he wanted everyone to have fun.

“Kotori, how about you tag with me?” he said. “That way you can get more experience!”

“That sounds kind of complicated...” Kotori said, frowning.

“You did it with me befure, remempurr?” Cathy said.

“Yeah, but we were possessed by the Barian Force then,” Kotori said.

“But now there isn't anything at stake, so it should be more relaxing, right?” Todoroki said.

Yuma opened his mouth to agree when his D-Gazer buzzed. Oh, sheez, was his sister already calling him?? They had just gotten here!

He scrambled to get it out of his pocket.

 _No Caller_ , the caller id read. Not Akari, then? Yuma almost didn't answer—he didn't get a lot of calls, after all, and he wasn't sure how he felt about answering calls with no caller id...he had seen enough horror movies.

“Who is it?” Ryoga asked.

“I dunno,” Yuma said. “Says no caller.”

He made to shove the D-Gazer back into his pocket, but his finger hit the glass by accident instead.

“Oh, shit,” he said.

“Yuma,” Kotori said, glaring at him for the language.

“Come on, Kotori, we're almost in high school, I can say it—”

He fumbled with the D-Gazer to try and turn off the answered call, but then—

“ _Ah...is this working...? Yuma, are you there?”_

Yuma hesitated, lips parting.

“Astral...?”

The screen flickered, and then, suddenly, there ze was, zir pale blue face leaning into the frame. Ze blinked, yellow eyes looking curiously through the screen. Then ze smiled.

“Ah! It did work,” ze said. “Yuma, I have finally figured out the correct frequency with which to contact you directly to your D-Gazers from Astravaria.”

“What?? That's awesome!!”

It had been several months since Astral had returned to Astral World—or, well, Astravaria, now. The Astral and Barian Worlds had been reforged once again into their original single world, and there was a lot to do over there, so Yuma hadn't heard much from Astral. Most of his contact with Astral since then had taken lots of work to align interdimensional signals, which could only be done with the technology that Kaito and Chris were working on at Heartland Tower. Yuma had visited the new Astravaria just once after they had managed to secure a brief wormhole, but it wasn't stable yet from the Heartland side. It would be months, Kaito said, before they could really make anything work, what with Astravaria still being new.

“Can you come and visit now, too?” Yuma asked excitedly. “Me and some of the others are going to be dueling, do you want to come too?”

Astral smiled that quiet smile of zirs.

“On an ordinary day, I would have gladly said yes,” ze said. “Unfortunately, I fear my call isn't quite as recreational as I wish it was. I hate to ask this on the first attempt at making direct contact with you, Yuma, but are you free at the moment?”

“Well, I mean...I guess so?”

“Who is it? Astral?”

Ryoga leaned over Yuma's shoulder, peering down. The boy smiled faintly.

“Took you long enough to get a connection, huh? What's up?”

Astral smiled back.

“I was getting to that,” ze said. “Actually, 'connection' is a good segway...you know that Astravaria's reformation resulted in a handful of fragments, right?”

“Oh, like Sargasso,” Mihael said, leaning over too to listen in. “You mean there are still some fragments spaces between?”

“Yes,” Astral said. “We've been working hard to reintegrate them, but it is...proving slow. The point in short is...we think we've intercepted a distress signal from one of them.”

Yuma's lips parted.

“You mean someone's in trouble.”

“Possibly, yes,” Astral said. “Normally, we would have a party sent out, however...most of our ships are still down for maintenance. Mine is the only one still functioning properly, and...well, I didn't want to distract from the others' current prerogatives.”

Ze smiled again, looking almost a little...embarrassed?

“What I am attempting to convey is that I was hoping you would accompany me, Yuma,” he said. “And the others as well, if they would like to accompany us as well. Eliphas agrees that we are the best people for a rescue mission in uncharted territory.”

Astral stuck out zir tongue slightly, looking up towards the top of the screen and not quite at Yuma. To anyone else, it would look like ze was getting distracted, but Yuma knew Astral better than anyone. Aww...ze was embarrassed.

“You missed me, didn't ya?” Yuma said, grinning.

“That...that would be correct,” Astral said, actually blushing lightly, zir cheeks turning a darker blue. “I do very much miss our adventures.”

Yuma's face split with a grin.

“Well, so did I! Count me in!!”

“Oy, oy, I'm not about to let you guys go off on your own,” Ryoga said. “I might not technically be a Barian anymore, but I still have my Barian Emperor reputation to uphold.”

“I'd be happy to have you aboard as well,” Astral said. “I'll be past with the ship in the next five minutes...I can't see all who's there, but they're all welcome to come with us as well; I don't think that this will be more than a few hours' jaunt.”

“I want to go, nya!” Cathy said, shooting her hand into the air.

“Hey, I just got here, don't leave me out,” Mihael said, hugging Yuma's shoulders with one arm.

“Well, I'm not getting left behind, either,” Kotori muttered. “I'm not letting you dummies out of my sight.”

“To summarize, that means all of us are going?” Todoroki said.

“Hell yea! Adventure time!” Tetsuo said, punching the air.

“You can count me in too.”

“Augh!!” Cathy said, jumping. “When did you get there, Tokunosuke??”

“When I did,” Tokunosuke said breezily, waving off the question. “So we're going somewhere new, huh?”

Yuma gripped his D-Gazer, feeling a smile break over his face. He vibrated slightly. He had expected a fun day dueling, but this was even better! He was going to get to go to some cool place in space with Astral again—augh, it had been so long since he had been on that ship!

This was going to be so exciting, going on another adventure again, after so long!

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> YO IT'S HALLOWEEN FRIENDOES SO YOU KNOW WHAT THAT MEANS, TIME FOR ANOTHER HALLOWEEN SPECIAL
> 
> This time the Zexal kids are on the docket to be tormented hehe. Hope you enjoy this year's halloween special!!


	2. Magnetopause

“Astral!!”

Astral actually almost fell over under the hug, and ze laughed as ze managed to catch Yuma.

“Wow, I almost would have thought you're not happy to see him,” Ryoga said from behind.

“Oh shush,” Yuma shot back.  “Astral!!  I missed you!!”

“It's been too long,” Astral said with one of zir soft, gentle smiles.  Ze patted Yuma's head briefly before returning the hug with a quick squeeze.

Astral hadn't changed a bit.  Ze still looked like the same glowing, rune-covered pale blue alien that Yuma had met from the beginning.  Though, in comparison to their first meeting, zir yellow eyes were much warmer, zir face gentler and a tad more expressive.

Yuma grinned as he bounced back on his heels, barely able to conceal his excitement.

“Oy,” Ryoga said, bopping him on the back of the head.  “Remember, we're here for a rescue mission or something, not a joyride.”

“Ugh, I _know_ , Shark!”

“Where are we headed?” Mihael asked.  He looked around the ship with his mouth slightly open in awe.  It looked like it was taking everything he had not to start touching all the consoles and examine all the screens.  Yuma remembered then that it was Mihael's first time on Astral's airship.

“The signal is coming from a small pocket dimension somewhere near the outskirts, on the former Barian side,” Astral said.  Ze flicked zir fingers, and readouts appeared in mid air.  It made Mihael jump, but then he was leaning forward, eyes shining with fascination.

“This ship is incredible,” he said, whole face lit up.  “You know, a lot of this reminds me of some old artifacts I found once in Mexico!”

“They were probably inspired by one of these models,” Astral said.  “If I am honest, my ship is quite old...well past the development point of the new ones, at least.  One or more may have turned up around Earth at some point a long time ago.”

That made Mihael's grin spread wider.

“Astral! Do you need us to pilot?” Yuma said.

Astral smiled, briefly putting zir hand on Yuma's head.

“I was hoping you would offer,” ze said.  “I missed having a full crew on board.”

“Aw yeah!” Tetsuo said, punching the air.  “Dibs on my seat from last time!”

“Um, should I just put this down somewhere?” Kotori said, still hugging her Duel Disk.

“Just put it on,” Ryoga said as he made his way to one of the console seats.  “We don't know what we're in for, might as well prepare yourself.”

“Don't be such a spoilsport,” Cathy said.

“This isn't a field trip,” Ryoga said, rolling his eyes.  “God.”

Yuma hopped forward to take his usual place at the main console, resting his hands on the twin pillars on either side of him.  He sucked in a breath at the familiar tingle going up his arms as his brain synced up with the ship through his fingers.  He could feel it thrumming beneath his hands—it was excited, just as excited as Yuma was.  It couldn't wait to get going—it had been so long since it had had an entire crew in its cockpit, and the ship was raring to go.

“Come on, guys, the ship's getting impatient,” Yuma said.

“It's a ship, Yuma, it doesn't have feelings,” Todoroki said.

“Says you,” Yuma retorted.  The ship hummed under his fingers in agreement.  Yuma's heart thrummed along with it.  God, but it had been so long!  He couldn't wait to get going either.

“Astral, we're ready for the coordinates,” Ryoga said.

“I'm inputting them now,” Astral said.

The ship's humming grew louder as the screens flickered to life.  Yuma felt the ship sigh deeply underneath his hands, and then the forward window was sliding open, so that he could see the sky through the glass.  It was orangey with the setting sun of Heartland, but in a moment, Yuma knew he would be seeing the vast expanse of space.  The ship murmured through his fingers, as though telling him what it needed.

“Kotori, please set the alignment,” Astral said.

“III, can you take that screen?” Yuma said.  “Check to see that everything's green.”

“We're ok!” Mihael said, holding up his fingers in the ok sign.

“Tetsuo, turn on the thrusters!” Yuma said.  “Tokunosuke, flip the flaps!”

“They're called auxiliary wings,” Ryoga muttered.

“Okay!  Here we go!”

The world outside the window pinched inwards, and the orange turned to a swirl of almost rainbow colors.  The ship strained eagerly under Yuma's fingers as the thrusters came to life, stabilizing wings shot out.

“And...go!”

Yuma let the ship free, and they exploded forward.

The rainbow ripples immediately turned to blurred streaks of white and black—it was almost dizzying to look at.  The ship briefly stretched forward, the whole world going thin and elongated.  And then everything snapped back to normal, and the white outside was the only side that they were moving as fast as they were.

The cockpit relaxed, and Yuma heard Kotori let out a brief sigh.

“We're off!” Yuma said, finally lifting his hands from the dials to punch the air.

“You're really in tune with this,” Mihael said, turning in his seat.  “You've flown this a lot before?”

“Well—a couple of times, at least,” Yuma said, rubbing under his nose.

Astral floated down to just above the floor beside Yuma.

“You've gotten remarkably better,” ze said, looking almost a little surprised.

“I told ya, the ship's excited...she wanted to get going too, so she tells me what to do.”

“You have a big imagination,” Tokunosuke said.  “That's admirable.”

“Don't make fun of me,” Yuma said, pouting.

Astral, however, looked faintly thoughtful.  Ze opened zir mouth a moment, as though to say something.

It all happened so quickly.  The ship's excited hum stopped all at once.  Yuma turned, confused, to put his hands back onto the control panel.

And then, the next thing he knew, the ship was screaming.

“Yuma!”

“Yuma-kun!”

“Yuma!!”

W-why were they all calling out to _him_?  It was the ship, the ship was scared, she was screaming—she didn’t want to, didn’t want to.  Didn’t want to what?  Program not compatible, overriding program wasn’t compatible—

Kotori screamed, then, and the cockpit started to flicker, lights turning on and off—the whole ship shook, he heard people falling and squealing, thumping around as they ran into consoles or hit the floor, he himself lifted off the floor a few times from the rocking—oh, what, w-when had he fallen...?

And then everything stopped.

The ship simply froze.  The cockpit lights went completely off for a moment.  A few moments later, the emergency lights came on, faint and blue, sending the whole space into an eerie, pale glow.

It was then that Yuma realized that he was on the floor, curled up in the fetal position with his hands over his ears.  W-when...when had that happened...?

He felt dizzy.  His tongue was too thick in his mouth, and his throat was completely dry.  His ears still rang with the sound of the ship screaming, but now, in the silence, the absence of sound was even worse.

It took him almost a full minute to crawl himself up to his knees, his head pulsing, every muscle trembling.  He fumbled upwards to put his hands on top of the control panels.  Nothing.  No tingling, no sense that there was a living machine under his hands.  His heart almost stopped.  The ship...the ship was dead.  Was it just—it was gone?  What had happened?

“E-everyone?” Yuma coughed.  “Is everyone okay?”

“I...I think so,” Kotori mumbled.

Heart fluttering with just the faintest bit of panic that he tried to shove away, Yuma pushed himself up against one of the control panel pillars, coming to rest with it propping him sitting upright.

In the dark, it took him a while to pick everyone out, even with the emergency lights.  Kotori was on the ground, clutching at her chest and looking like she might be on the verge of a heart attack.  Cathy had grabbed hold of one of the chairs, and didn't look like she was going to be able to be pried off any time soon.  Tokunosuke and Todoroki had fallen over onto each other, and were still just lying there, looking shaken.  Tetsuo was against one of the back consoles with his hands braced behind him.  Ryoga was already on his feet, helping Mihael stand shakily.  Yuma had to look around a bit more to find Astral, and finally, relieved, he saw zir hovering up near the top of the window, zir glowing yellow eyes peering nervously out into the world outside.

“Everyone in one piece?” Ryoga said.

“For the most part,” Todoroki groaned.

Yuma licked his dry lips.  Okay...everyone was still here, and still conscious.  His heart ached, though.  What had happened to the ship?  She had been so scared...

“Astral, where are we?” Ryoga asked.

Astral didn't answer for a moment, zir lips pressed together as ze looked outside.  There wasn't much to see through the front facing window, to be honest.  Just...darkness.  There were a few distant, faint stars, but not enough to illuminate anything near them.

“Well...when the meltdown happened...we were only a click away from the intended coordinates.  Factoring in our speed, and the amount of time it took us to come to a complete stop...I believe we have arrived directly at our destination.”

“R-really?” Yuma coughed.

“I don't see anything out there?” Cathy said, carefully regaining her feet.

“Nor do I,” Astral said. 

Ze pressed zir lips together.   Then ze quickly zipped down from the window, hovering between everyone.

“We need to go into the engine and see what happened,” Astral said.

Zir eyes flickered to Yuma, then, and zir face twisted with concern.  Ze zipped forward.

“Are you all right?  You collapsed just before it happened...”

“D-did I?” Yuma said.  He still felt dizzy and his chest ached, but otherwise, he was coming back to himself.  “I'm fine, really, Astral.  I just—the ship screamed.  Didn’t you hear it?”

Astral's lips parted in that strange, considering expression again.  Then ze shook zir head.

“I didn't hear anything,” ze said softly.  Ze hummed once.  “Are you all right to walk?  I would appreciate it if you would come with me to the engine and see if you...hear anything similar.”

Yuma quickly nodded, scrambling up to his knees.

“I'm coming too,” Ryoga said, stepping forward.

“Me too!” Mihael said.

Kotori jumped up next, and Cathy was also hurrying to her feet, but Astral shook zir head.

“Mihael, if I could ask you to stay here and keep an eye on the readouts, that would be more helpful.  The rest of you as well…though, Shark, I would not be opposed to your accompanying us, in case Yuma has trouble walking again.”

“I’m fine, I promise!!” Yuma insisted.  He hopped to his feet and flexed to prove his point.  Ryoga just rolled his eyes.

“Okay, I’m coming, then,” he said, grabbing Yuma by the elbow.  “Everyone else…stay here and hold down the fort, okay?”

“That’s fine with me,” Todoroki said, looking a little green.

Yuma plucked his elbow free from Ryoga’s grip with a pout, but…well, there was nothing wrong with Ryoga coming too.

“The engine room is very close, let’s not dawdle,” Astral said.  “The rest of you, please keep in touch with us through your D-Gazers…keep an eye on the screens, and anything that’s outside.”

“Will do,” Mihael said, saluting.

Just the faintest bit dizzy, Yuma trotted after Astral and Ryoga towards the door in the back.  Come to think of it, he really hadn’t been in any other part of the ship except the cockpit.  He hadn’t been completely aware that there was anything else…he had almost thought it was just the cockpit and nothing else.  It didn’t look very big from the outside, after all.

The ship hung silent and unfeeling around them, and as the doors slid open to the dark hallway outside, Yuma found a strange crawling feeling wrapping over his arms.  He shivered.  It was…too quiet…

*    *    *

Five minutes dragged on.  Mihael tapped his foot against the floor.  At first, it had been sort of exciting, like they were on some kind of secret space mission.  He had had fun examining every screen that was still on in detail and figuring out what each readout meant—some were still a mystery to him—and looking over the technology while trying to resist the urge to pull some of it apart.  They were already dead in the water; he didn’t need to complicate things.  He would love to ask Astral more about this ship once their mission was over, though.

Still, even that hadn’t filled the time for long.  Mihael had set the others at all the screens he thought were most important, and instructed them to read off any changes.  The others had seemed at least grateful for the distraction at first, but soon, there was nothing to report, and it was starting to feel less like a fun space adventure and more like a boring road trip where the car broke down and you were just waiting for a tow.

Mihael stared aimlessly out at the darkness through the window.  Wow, space was right there, huh?  He hadn’t really thought about it too much, but…there wasn’t much separating him from the vast expanse of space right now.

 _I should have called Thomas and Chris and told them I was going out with Astral_ , he thought suddenly.  _I hope they don’t worry_.

He wondered briefly if he could get a signal from here through his D-Gazer.  He should probably try; who knew how long it would take Astral to fix the ship and get them going with their mission before they could go home.

Mihael was tapping at his D-Gazer, fumbling for the contacts list, when something on the video feed in front of him caught his attention.

He looked up, frowning.  Had…had something just moved?

The image looked back at him, still and unmoving.  It showed a dark hallway with just the glowing strips of emergency lights along the floor, barely illuminated.  Mihael hadn’t seen Astral and the others go down that way, they had moved past on another monitor, so he wasn’t entirely sure where this camera was looking.

Ah!  There it was again—something flickering around the corner!

Mihael bit his tongue.

“Kotori-chan?  Have you seen anything different on your screens?”

Kotori jerked up a bit, clearly having dozed off.

“Oh, uh…no, I don’t see anything…”

Kotori’s screen was a readout of the ship, Mihael knew; with markers for the life signs inside.

“Astral and the others are still in the engine room?”

“Yeah…”

Mihael frowned.  Maybe it had just been a flicker of the screen, or something.  Some dust on the monitor.

He looked back down at his D-Gazer.  Maybe he should call Astral first.  Finger hovering over the call button, he looked back up at the screen.

He almost screamed.  There was someone standing in the hallway—staring right at him.

“Mihael?  Is something wrong?”

He hadn’t realized he had leaped out of his chair and stumbled back—those eyes.  They were staring right at him, with such horrible intensity that he almost didn’t realize that it was—it was Astral, Astral was standing there, right in the middle of the screen, staring at him with burning eyes that were—that were _bleeding—_

He blinked and the bloody-eyed Astral was gone.

Had he—

Had he imagined that?

 _Something’s moving around the corner again_.

A flicker like fabric showed up on the screen, disappearing around the corner.

There was something in the ship.

“III?” Cathy said, and he quickly glanced over his shoulder.  She looked pale and worried.  He glanced at the screen.  Empty.  Was he seeing things?

He couldn’t deny the crawling nervousness that coursed through him.  But…but he didn’t want to send the others into a panic.

“Yuma waved at me on the camera; I think he might need something?  So I’m just going to go check it out real fast,” Mihael said.  “The engine room isn’t far, and you’ll see me on the cameras, so I’ll be right back!”

He had to get out there and see what that was.  It was almost a physical need all of a sudden, a burning sensation in the pit of his stomach.  He had to get out there and do something about it. If there was something dangerous on board…

“Hang tight,” he said, flashing a reassuring smile.  “I’ll be right back!”

He tightened his Duel Disk on his wrist as he headed for the door.

If there was something dangerous, he would eliminate it, immediately.


	3. Interacting Galaxies

Astral squinted at the gears, tongue out slightly.  Ze stuck zir hands into the wall as though ze were completely insubstantial, rummaging around.

The engine room wasn’t very big, barely enough to fit the three of them.  Ryoga had crunched himself into the corner near the door, arms folded and scowling as usual.  Yuma leaned back to make sure Astral had space to work, eyes glancing around the room.  Gears with Number symbols gleaming on the ends covered most of the walls.  The floor was solid, but the rest was made up of varying depths of the gears.  Everything gleamed a faint golden or copper color—somehow, it looked old and new at the same, shiny but slightly worn or chipped in places.

“Any luck?” Ryoga said.

“I cannot find the problem,” Astral said, brow furrowing.  “For all intents and purposes, the ship should be functioning.  It simply…isn’t.”

Yuma stuck his tongue out, running his hands against the gears slightly.  There wasn’t a single spark, not even a tingle.  He looked up to find Astral looking right at him with a curious intensity. Yuma frowned.

“What?”

“I was merely wondering if you were…sensing anything,” Astral said.  “You seem to be experiencing some kind of kinship with the ship.”

“What do you mean?” Ryoga said, blinking.

Astral glanced back at Ryoga, and then at Yuma again.

“You said you could sense the ship’s…feelings,” Astral said.  “Is that right?”

“Huh?  Oh, I mean, yeah,” Yuma said.  “I mean—probably overactive imagination, right?”

Astral shook zir head.

“Yuma, since I last saw you, I see that…something of your aura has begun to grow,” ze said.   
“When I first met you, you barely had any soul signature at all.  And now…now it is nearly blinding.”

“What does that mean?” Yuma said.

Ryoga’s eyes, however, sparked with interest.

“People with higher aura intensity tend to manifest some kind of abilities,” he said.  “A lot of the Barians in life were humans with intense soul signatures.”

“You would know because you have one of the strongest auras I’ve ever seen,” Astral said, nodding.  “But…Yuma, it’s not normal for auras to increase.  Yours hasn’t stopped increasing since I met you.”

“So what are you saying?” Yuma said, his heart jumping.

Astral put zir hand to the side of the ship.

“You said you could sense the ship,” ze said.  “Perhaps you are beginning to manifest some type of…emotional connection ability.  I would not be surprised.”

Ryoga snorted, as though to say “me neither.”

Yuma frowned.  It was true that he had sensed something from the ship in the heat of the moment, but…

He put both hands against the gears, concentrating.  But nothing happened.

“I don’t feel anything,” he said.  “Just…emptiness.”

It swirled around in his head, the cold, empty space where the ship had been.  It was as though she had turned hollow and icy, her soul gone.

“These ships are old,” Astral mused.  “It would not be outside of reason that the technology they bear could eventually develop into some kind of sentience.  You said the ship was frightened, just before we stalled?”

“Y-yeah,” Yuma said, shivering as he remembered the awful sound.  “She was screaming…something scared her a lot.”

Astral hummed.

“Something may have sent the ship into defensive dormancy, then,” ze said.  “Well…if that’s the case, it would take getting rid of whatever had caused the defense mode…”

Astral’s face turned even paler than normal then.

“What could possibly scare an entire ship so much that it went into dormancy?” ze said, quietly.

A cold seemed to filter into the room.

“We should go back to the cockpit,” Ryoga said, looking pale.  He fished out his D-Gazer and began to dial out Mihael’s number.

“I…I want to try something,” Astral said.

They all paused, looking up at zir.

“I am, technically, a program, much like the ship,” Astral said.  “I may be able to temporarily integrate myself with the ship, and encourage it to function from the inside.”

“Would that hurt you?”

“Not particularly,” Astral said.  “It would be…a bit uncomfortable, but as long as I am not inside the ship’s workings for long, it shouldn’t be a problem.”

“You can power the whole ship?” Ryoga said dubiously.

“Not power it, but help run its normal functions,” Astral said.  “As I have said, the ship itself is in perfect condition—it is simply asleep.  From the inside, I may be able to encourage it to wake up, and remove us from whatever danger zone we’re in.”

Ryoga didn’t look convinced, and Yuma bit his lip.

“You’re positive it won’t hurt you?” Yuma said.

Astral smiled, patting Yuma briefly on the head.

“Does it hurt a flash drive to be plugged into a computer?” Astral said.  “I appreciate your concern, Yuma, but I promise you, I will be fine.”

Yuma hmphed at being patted, but to be honest, it did make him feel better.

“Okay,” Yuma said.  “Do you need anything from us?”

“Head back to the cockpit,” Astral said, as ze turned to face zir back to the back wall.  Ze began to turn transparent.  “I will only be able to contact you through the ship’s functions while I am plugged in, so having someone at the readouts to receive my messages is imperative.”

“Okay,” Yuma said.  “Be—be careful!”

Astral simply nodded, and then, ze turned almost completely see-through, before sinking softly through the gears until ze disappeared.

For a moment, Yuma just stared at the place where ze had been.  Then Ryoga patted him awkwardly on the shoulder.

“Let’s get back,” he said.  “Make sure those idiots didn’t burn down the cockpit or something.”

Yuma laughed, but it felt hollow, even to him.  He was…nervous.  What had scared the ship?

And then Ryoga’s D-Gazer began to ring.

Ryoga blinked down at his palm, surprised.  Frowning, he clicked to receive.

“Kotori?  What’s up?”

Kotori’s face appeared on Ryoga’s tiny screen—and Yuma’s blood went cold.  W-why was she crying?

“Oh my god, you guys,” she gasped.  “III saw something on the screens, he went to check it out, but then something happened, I can’t get a hold of him, and Tokunosuke went missing, I don’t know when he left, but Cathy went after him before I could stop her—”

“Whoa, fuck, slow down,” Ryoga said.  “III is gone?  And Tokunosuke and Cathy?”

He swore and muttered something about “what part of staying put don’t you guys understand.”

Kotori opened her mouth to respond, but then her eyes flickered up, as though looking at the screen.

“Oh my _god_ ,” she said.  “O-oh my god, guys, d-don’t come, don’t come through the halls, don’t leave that room guys—”

The D-Gazer hissed and went out to a faint static.  Yuma’s heart clenched up so badly that for a moment he thought it had stopped beating.  He grabbed Ryoga’s arm.

“Shark,” he said.  “What’s happening?”

“I don’t know, I don’t fucking know!” Ryoga said.  “Kotori!  Kotori, pick the fuck back up!!”

He swore again and ended the call, dialing in Mihael’s number next.  It rang and rang, but there wasn’t an answer—it didn’t even go to voicemail.  Ryoga swore.

Yuma couldn’t breathe.  Something was wrong, Astral was in the ship and couldn’t get back out yet, Kotori wasn’t answering, Tokunosuke, Cathy, and Mihael were missing, and—

And why didn’t Kotori want them to leave the engine room?

No, he couldn’t—he couldn’t wait.  He had to get back to Kotori and the others and find out what was wrong.

He grabbed the handle of the door and flung it open, bolting down the hall.

“Y—fuck!  Yuma!  Get back here!!  We have to—”

“Just keep up!!” Yuma shouted back, pumping his arms as hard as he could.  He had to get back—he had to get back and make sure everyone was okay!


	4. Occultation

Yuma panted, his feet slowly stumbling to a nervous walk.

Where exactly was he?

The trip down to the engine room hadn’t been long.  Just one short hallway, a turn to the left, and then down some stairs to another small hallway.  He hadn’t seen any other doors while they walked through, so he thought that must have been the whole ship.  Not very big after all.

But…he hadn’t turned any ways he didn’t think he should have.  He should have made it back to the cockpit by now.  But he hadn’t even found the stairs, yet…

He felt a faint shiver run down his arms, glancing back over his shoulder.  Ryoga was nowhere to be seen.  M-maybe he should have waited…was Ryoga okay?

 _Shark can handle himself_ , he reminded himself.  _Shark is…well, he’s tough._

He was probably still standing in the engine room, swearing at Yuma’s back, but loathe to move from his spot and make them less able to find each other.  Yeah, that sounded like Shark…

He…he’d call him.

Yuma palmed his D-Gazer and hit Ryoga’s face on his contacts list.  It buzzed in his hand as he came to a stop, tongue slightly out with nerves as he shifted from foot to foot.

Man, it had been ringing for a long time.  Was he going to pick up?  If he wasn’t, shouldn’t the answering machine have picked up by now?

“Come on, Shark…” Yuma mumbled.

Maybe he was just imagining how long it had been.  He started counting the rings.  One…two…three…it had just rung seven times, it wasn’t supposed to ring that long, and it had been ringing even before he started counting.  Heart jumping, he canceled the call.  He tried Kotori next, counting the rings from the beginning.  He gave it fifteen rings before he gave up.  M-Mihael, he’d try Mihael.

He called every single person in their group, giving all of them fifteen or twenty rings before he gave up and tried the next person.  What on earth was going on??  Why wasn’t he able to reach anyone?

He looked up from his D-Gazer—and his heart immediately shoved into his throat, choking him.

This…he hadn’t been in this hallway a second ago.

The thin corridor of the ship, with glowing blue emergency lights in the floor shining across the bronze walls, was no longer in front of him.  Instead, he seemed to be in a much bigger hallway, one that was about four of him with arms stretched out across.  He saw a couple of big black doors on either side of him along the walls of the hallway.  There were big crates stacked against one of the walls, old greenish lights flickering overhead.  He…he hadn’t even noticed the light changing…w-was he going crazy?  There was no way the ship was this big, right?

He heard something move behind him.

A squeak escaped him before he could stop it.  He whipped around so fast that he lost his D-Gazer, and distantly he heard it hit the ground and spin away.

There was nothing behind him but the long hallway that shouldn’t be here.

 _B-Breathe,_ he told himself.  _What…what would Astral tell you to do?_

He could almost hear his friend’s voice echoing in his head.

_Take a breath, and carefully observe your surroundings.  The more you know about the situation, the more control you have._

Yuma took in a deep, deep breath, trying not to choke on it.  He looked again at the hallway.

Nothing had changed since the last time he had looked at it, but…but something felt off.  It seemed to flicker, almost, like…like a mirage?  Was he being shown some kind of illusion?  If that was true, then the place wouldn’t have actually gotten bigger, right?  If he walked to the side, maybe he’d feel the real walls of the ship…

He walked cautiously to the side, feeling out with his fingers.  But he didn’t touch anything, until he reached the far wall and pressed his hands against the cold, pale metal.  His heart clenched a bit.

_I don’t know what’s going on…_

He heard another clumping sound—this time from behind the stacked crates.  Heart trembling, he quickly scooped up his D-Gazer and slapped it onto his face, fumbling to turn his Duel Disk on.  He needed to be able to defend himself—

Mihael walked around the crates.  Yuma immediately felt himself slump with absolute relief.

“Oh thank god,” he said, scurrying forward.  “What happened?  Kotori said you disappeared, and then t-this thing happened, like—this isn’t the ship, is it?  This doesn’t look right, right?”

It seemed to take Mihael a moment to respond, blinking.  In the light, his eyes looked…weird?  Like almost too pale.  Then his face slumped with relief and he smiled.

“Yuma,” he said, sighing.  “Thank goodness.  Sorry about that, my D-Gazer isn’t working.  And then I got lost.”

“Me too!” Yuma said.  “I don’t know what happened!  Are you okay?  Why did you leave the cockpit?”

“Looking for you,” Mihael said.

“Huh?  But you knew where we were,” Yuma said.  “We were going to be right back.”

Mihael hesitated.  Confusion momentarily sparked over his eyes.  Was there something wrong with him?  Yuma’s heart jumped. After Kotori’s panic and this strange new ship layout…maybe something had hurt him.

Yuma grabbed Mihael’s hand, mouth open to ask him if he was okay.

He felt like _ice_.

Yuma dropped Mihael’s hand with shock.  H-how was he so cold?  It felt—wrong.  There was a chill passing through his hand and up his arm from the contact and he swallowed, hands shaking.  That wasn’t right, nothing about that was right, something was wrong with him all of a sudden, his head was thick and dizzy.

Mihael blinked, staring at his hand.  His eyes lifted up towards Yuma, lips parting, brow furrowing with a brief confusion.

Yuma felt the ship ache underneath his feet, the cold dormancy peaking slightly.  _Fear_ , he thought, coursing through him.  _The ship was afraid_.

An ice crawled through his chest as he slowly saw Mihael’s eyes shift.

It wasn’t just the lighting.  Mihael’s eyes were too white—a pure, pale white, without any irises or pupils.

“You’re—you’re not III.”

Mihael’s face darkened.

Before Yuma could blink, he felt an ice cold hand twisting around his throat, bodily slamming him against the crates. He gasped, light sparking in his eyes.  The air rushed out of him from the impact, and with the icy vise clamped around his throat, he couldn’t get it back.  He kicked weakly, feet held inches off the ground as whatever held him pressed him harder against the crates.

“III,” Yuma gasped.  “Wh-what did you do with—”

“Shhhhh…” the creature said, still sounding like it had Mihael’s voice.  “Shhh…”

It pressed its icy cold body against Yuma, shoving him hard against the wall and slowly increasing the pressure on him.  He felt like he was about to freeze just from contact, the ice crawling down his throat.  Panic spiked through him, making him kick and squirm harder.  He had to—he had to get away!  He didn’t know if this was Mihael, possessed, or just something using Mihael’s face, but either way, he had to get out of here!

Yuma managed to snake one arm free and swung it down as hard as he could at the creature’s neck.  _Sorry, Mihael_ , he thought, hoping it wasn’t just his possessed friend…if it was, Mihael would understand, but he didn’t want to hit him…

The creature gasped, and staggered a bit—it was enough for Yuma to slump to the floor and cough, gasping for breath.  It was fast, though—no sooner had he managed to shove himself to his feet than the creature was on him again, slamming him to the floor and crushing both hands around his throat.

“Shhh…” it said again. “Stay here…stay here…”

Yuma coughed and struggled and kicked—he—he was going to die.  This thing was going to kill him, freeze him from the inside out—what was it?  What was it doing here?  Had it—had it already hurt Mihael, and Tokunosuke, and Cathy?  W-what about Ryoga, and Kotori, and Tetsuo and Todoroki?

This thing was going to kill him and it would go for his friends next.

With a mighty effort, Yuma clapped his hands to the sides of the fake Mihael’s face.  It was burning cold to the touch and he would have screamed if he had had air.

As soon as his hands clamped against the creature’s temples, he felt it—the cold, yawning emptiness inside it, hollow and freezing—just like the empty ship.  B-but it was different, it was starting to warm up from the inside.  Like it was filling up with—with something??  Yuma’s head screamed—it hurt!  His brain was getting freezing cold just from brushing against this huge, yawning ice—he just wanted to be _WARM—_

The creature flinched, and suddenly, its hands were off of Yuma’s throat.  

Yuma gasped and scrabbled.  He didn’t think.  He just lunged himself free and scrambled to his feet, bolting for freedom.  He wasn’t sure what had happened, but he was momentarily free, and he stumbled forward as fast as his breathless body would take him.

He—he had to find the others.  He had to find them, before that _thing_ did.


	5. Luminosity

People never, ever, _ever_ said exactly what they meant.  It was a strange failing of humans that didn’t make much sense.  Wouldn’t it just make everything so much easier to survive if people were truthful?  But they weren’t, and that was something that Tokunosuke knew better than anyone.

So when Mihael said there was nothing wrong, and he was just going to check in on what Yuma and Shark and Astral were up to, he knew that Mihael was lying.

Mihael had seen something on the cameras, Tokunosuke thought.  And he was trying to be a hero, like everyone else in this ridiculous group, by taking care of it by himself without worrying anyone.

Well, if Mihael got hurt, Yuma would be upset, and that was always a pain when Yuma was upset.  It was so much easier when people just didn’t do heroic things and worked together and just didn’t do stupid things.  Ugh.  Well, he guessed it was up to him to make sure Mihael didn’t go off on his own and do something stupid.

Tokunosuke knew enough about lying to know when he was lying to himself, too.

He peeked around the corner, frowning.  The last time he had checked, the ship hadn’t been this big.  Kotori’s readouts had made it look very straightforward—so even the maps were lying, huh?

Tokunosuke hummed, tapping his foot as he looked back and forth down either side of the corridor.  Left…or right?  Right…or left?  He had no idea which way Mihael had gone.  Ugh.  What a pain.

 _There’s always a flip side_ , he thought.  _To everything, really…so…what’s the flip side to this getting stuck in space?_

Astral seemed to think that it could be an easy fix, and then they’d be on their way, but…the real question was what had caused the disaster in the first place.  And thinking about what Yuma had said—and if Tokunosuke was going to believe _anyone_ was telling the truth, it would be Yuma—that meant something had done this on purpose.  A jumped conclusion? Maybe.  But you always did better when you just assumed from the beginning that someone or something was out to get you.  And that was probably what Mihael had gone to check out so…it just all made sense.

Tokunosuke decided to go left.  He hummed faintly to himself, looking around at the ship as he passed.  Yeah, there was definitely something wrong about all of this.  The walls didn’t even look the right material.  He kind of felt like he was inside some space, sci-fi horror game, what with the low, greenish lighting, the random boxes everywhere (for taking cover from the monsters, because you could never really fight them in a true horror game), and the cavernous look of the hallways.

He heard something skitter across the metal floor behind him and all of his thoughts immediately stopped in his tracks.

His heart thrummed in his ears.  M-maybe…actually…this had been a bad idea.  Or maybe he should have said something to Tetsuo or Kotori before he had made the split second decision to dart after Mihael.  Maybe he should have told someone where he was going—

“There you are, nya!!”

Tokunosuke made a very unattractive squeak as Cathy grabbed him from behind, scooping him up under the arms and bodily lifting him into the air.

“Hey!!” he said, kicking his legs and arms.  “Hey!  Put me down!”

“Not if you’re going to pounce away!” Cathy said.  “You’re making efurryone really worried, nya!”

“Gah! I’m not going to run away for no reason! Now put me down!”

Cathy held him up for a few more seconds before finally letting him down.  He hopped back and spun so that he was facing her—from a safe enough distance that she couldn’t pick him up again.  Cathy frowned at him, putting her hands on her hips.

“You made Kotori-chan really upset!” she said.  “What are you even doing, nya?”

Tokunosuke irritably brushed off and pressed his shirt rumples back down.

“I was making sure Mihael was all right,” he said crossly.  “He was lying, you know, he wasn’t going to go see Yuma.”

“Of course I knew that,” Cathy said.  “But splitting up isn’t a meow-velous idea either!  We could have watched from the cameras to make sure things are okay!  Besides, Mihael-kun can take care of himself.”

The more she said, the more stupid Tokunosuke felt.  She was…right, after all.  Not that he was going to admit that.  He pouted at her, puffing out his chest.

“Well, fine, let’s just find Mihael, make sure everything’s okay, and then go back,” he said.  “You can call Kotori, tell her everything is okay.”

“Fine,” Cathy said, glaring at him.

She tapped her glasses on the side, turning on the D-Gazer side.  She frowned, cross eyed for a moment as she set it to call Kotori, then folded her arms and waited.

And waited.

Tokunosuke blinked.  That sure was taking a long time to ring…

Cathy looked slightly pale when she tapped her glasses again to end the call.

“It’s not picking up, nya,” she said nervously.

“I’ll try Yuma,” Tokunosuke said.

His D-Gazer rang and rang and rang…nothing.  They looked up at each other.  Tokunosuke wondered if he was as pale as Cathy.

“Let’s go back,” he said quickly.

“Right,” Cathy said, turning around.

Except when they both looked back the way they had come…nothing looked quite familiar anymore.

It…sort of looked the same but…but the hallway that he had come out of originally was gone.  Cathy grabbed his shoulder, and he didn’t try to shrug it off.

“This is where we came from, right?” she said, voice shaking.  “That’s where we came from?”

“D-don’t panic,” Tokunosuke said, although he himself was currently panicking.  “We must have just gotten a little turned around.  P-panicking is going to make it hard to focus.”

He turned around to look over his shoulder.  Had those boxes been on that side of the wall the last time he was looking that way?  He swallowed.  Okay, okay, he had to think, there was an explanation for everything, h-he had to think, o-or else it would be all his fault if he or Cathy got hurt by something—

He actually screamed when he saw something come around the boxes—and he didn’t relax when he saw that it was Yuma.  He felt Cathy’s hand slump on his shoulder, though.

“O-oh thank goodness,” she said.  “Y-Yuma-kun, we got lost.”

Tokunosuke grabbed her elbow before she could walk forward.

“Yuma was in the engine room,” he said.

Cathy blinked.

“So, nya?”

“I’ve been looking for you guys,” Yuma said, walking forward.

Well…he looked like Yuma, Tokunosuke thought.  And there was reason to believe that it could be Yuma.  He was smiling with relief like Yuma did.

But nothing about this felt right.  And everything, and everyone, was always lying.

Still gripping Cathy’s elbow, he swallowed, licking his lips.

“Yuma, I’m sure you don’t mind me double checking, since this is a very strange situation, but what was the card that I gave you after our first meeting?”

Yuma stopped walking, blinking with confusion.

“Huh?  Why would you ask that right now?”

“Just please, answer that,” Tokunosuke said.

“Um…” Yuma started.  “I don’t know; can you give me a hint?  It was a long time ago.”

Cathy tensed under Tokunosuke’s grip again, and Tokunosuke himself choked on a breath.

_Yuma wouldn’t forget._

_Yuma doesn’t forget things like that_.

Tokunosuke drew backwards, Cathy scurrying with him.

“Are…are you Yuma-kun?” Cathy mumbled.

Yuma blinked.

And for the barest moment, his face twisted darkly.

“Who else would I be?”

It was the wrong voice.  It was twisting and echoey, like—like as though the original voice had just been something it was trying on.

“R-run!” Tokunosuke squeaked.

Cathy grabbed him by the collar and practically dragged him after her as she bolted.  Tokunosuke flapped at the back of Cathy’s grip, stumbling backwards after her.  Yuma—or the thing that looked like Yuma—did not move.  It just stared after them, watching them go. 

Memorizing them, Tokunosuke thought out of nowhere.

Its eyes were wrong, now—completely white, almost hollow.  It stared without moving, standing eerily still in the hallway.

He flipped himself around so that he could run forward with Cathy, wondering even where they were going.

W-what was that thing?  How did it look like Yuma?  Where was Mihael and the others and why couldn’t they call anyone?  What had happened to the ship?

 _What’s the purpose?_ he thought.  _No one lies without a purpose.  What is this creature and why is it lying?_


	6. Chromosphere

_Brring, brring….brring, brring_

Kaito’s head snapped up from his desk—when had he fallen asleep?

He pawed groggily at the counter.  D-Gazer.  Where was the D-Gazer?  He heard a faint sliding sound and the D-Gazer appeared against his hand.  He grabbed it and hit the receive call button.

“What the fuck do you want,” he groaned.

“That’s kind of rude,” Chris mused, and Kaito remembered, then, that Chris was still in the lab.  He had probably been the one to push his D-Gazer to him.

“K-Kaito-kun, t-thank god—”

Kaito was immediately alert at the sound of the panic in Kotori’s voice.  He sat straight up, pulling the D-Gazer up so that he could see it better.  Kotori’s pale, drawn face appeared in his clearing vision, her eyes watery with tears.

“What is it?  What’s wrong?”

Kotori choked on a sob.  Before she could speak, however, Tetsuo appeared in the vision of the D-Gazer.  Todoroki appeared just underneath her, pushing up into the screen as well.

“We came with Astral to—”

“Yuma got—”

“But then Mihael—”

“Calls aren’t going through—”

“Scared—”

“Slow down,” Kaito snapped, holding up a hand.  “One at a time.  Kotori.  Where are you?”

Kotori gasped, trying to breathe.

“Astral got a distress signal, and ze thought that someone was lost in the bubble worlds outside of Astravaria,” she said. “W-we decided to come with zir, but the ship’s stalled out.  It won’t turn back on.”

What?  Astral’s ship wouldn’t just…stop.  He had looked at that thing’s workings himself.  Even he barely understood how it worked, but it wouldn’t just _stop_.  The Astravarian had fucking perpetual motion machines, for god’s sake.

“Who else went with you?” Kaito said.

“Y-Yuma, R-Ryoga-kun, Cathy, Tokunosuke, and III-kun,” Kotori said.

“And where are they?”

“Yuma and Shark went down to the engine room with Astral to find out what was wrong,” Tetsuo said.  “But then III said he was going to check in on them and we haven’t heard back since!”

“T-Tokunosuke disappeared, and Cathy went after him,” Todoroki said.  “W-we can’t get a call through to them, either.”

“And there are—Kaito-kun, there are things all over the ship readouts,” Kotori said, tears rolling down her cheeks.  “T-There’s something in the ship, there’s a lot of somethings maybe, and we can’t call anyone else, and K-Kaito, I’m scared—”

There was a loud bang off the screen and all three kids screamed.  Kotori pressed a hand to her head and seemed to curl in on herself.

“N-not again, not again, not again—”

“Something’s out there, it’s trying to get in sometimes,” Tetsuo said, looking pale.  “I-it can’t force its way through the door yet but…”

Kaito felt cold.  Oh god.  Fuck. These kids were all out there all alone and something had gone wrong.  How was he going to get up there?  How was he going to…

He felt Chris’s hand tighten onto his shoulder, grounding him.

“Call Mizael,” he said.  “They’ll have a way to get up there.”

Kaito nodded—thank god Chris was thinking clearly right now, because he wasn’t.  He felt the tremble in Chris’s hand though, and remembered then—Mihael was up there, and was one of the ones that Kotori had said was missing.

“Kotori, stay on the line if you can,” Kaito said.  “We’re going to try and send help.  Okay?  Stay calm.  Stay with me.”

No, wait, the call was…it was breaking up.

“W-what?” Kotori said.  “What did you say?”

“Kotori!”

Her voice crackled as the screen started to turn to static.  Then suddenly, abruptly, the call ended.  Kaito was left there staring at the D-Gazer in his hand, as static ran across the screen.

Chris’s hand was so tight on Kaito’s shoulder that Kaito could feel his fingers digging into his bones.  Fuck, Kaito thought.

He dialed Mizael’s number.

*    *    *

Kaito blinked at her, and Akari folded her arms.

“What?” she said.

“Nothing, I’m just surprised you’re here.  I didn’t call you.”

Akari scowled at him.

“And you don’t think you should have?  My brother is up there, ass.  How would you feel if I didn’t call you if Haruto was in trouble?”

Kaito looked a bit guilty, then.  Good.  Akari huffed, tightening her arms against her chest.  She had been lucky enough to be showing Alit her motorbike at the time that Mizael had called Alit, telling him the situation.  Of course she wasn’t sitting out!  Never again!  Her brother fucking needed help!

“So what do we know?” Chris asked.

Durbe lifted his glasses to peer at the screen, squinting.

“Nothing, yet,” he said.  “I managed to track Astral’s coordinates from the flight plan ze beamed to Astravaria logbase, but a brief radar search of that area shows nothing at all.”

“That’s weird, right?” Alit said.

“It’s very weird,” Durbe agreed.

He let his glasses fall back down on his nose and typed something onto the screen.  His tongue stuck out slightly.  Akari tapped her foot—she wasn’t the only one, either.  Thomas looked even more irritated than she felt, his arms folded as well and his face red as he jiggled his leg obsessively.

“Can you hurry up?” he said, slamming his hand onto the desk beside Durbe.  “Mihael’s up there!”

“And Nasch is too,” Durbe said, teeth grit.  “Excuse me if you aren’t the only one worried.”

“Shut up, both of you,” Rio snapped. 

For his part, Thomas actually did back off, looking away from her.  Rio was trembling, ever so slightly.  Akari reached over to put her hand on Rio’s shoulder—poor girl’s brother was up there too…she and Akari were in the same boat.

“All right,” Durbe said.  “We have no idea what we’re going to find up there.  If this were any other kind of mission, I would say we should wait for probe reports.”

“We don’t have time for that!!” Alit said.  “Yuma and Nasch and Kotori and everyone are in trouble!”

“Let me finish,” Durbe said, irritably.  “I said if this were any other circumstances.  That means this is different.”

He spun around in his chair, glancing at Mizael beside him.  Mizael nodded.

“Gilag is bringing in an old Barian ship that we haven’t used in a while,” Mizael said.  “It will get us out there, but likely not back.  We’ll have to hitch a ride back on Astral’s ship once we get it working again.”

“The ship isn’t very big, either,” Durbe said, steepling his fingers.  “So we can only send five people.”

Akari, Thomas, Alit, and Rio all stepped forward at the same time.  They all looked at each other.

“All right, fine,” Durbe said.  “And Gilag knows how to fly the damn thing, so he’ll be the fifth.  Get ready to leave as soon as he shows up.”

“The rest of us will stay back here and try to keep you all running smoothly,” Kaito said, waving at his screens and interfaces set up.  “We’ll run support as much as we can.”

Akari nodded.  That was fine by her—as long as she got to get up there and punch whoever was hurting her little brother.  Rio immediately whipped around to face the other three, arms folded.

“We’re going into _my_ territory,” she said.  “So once we get up there, you all listen to me and _stay_ with me, do you understand?”

Akari frowned—on one hand, this was thirteen-year-old telling them that she was in charge.

On the other hand, it was _also_ a several-thousand-year-old space alien queen.  So when Thomas opened his mouth, presumably to argue, Akari jabbed him hard under the ribs.

“Yes, ma’am!” Alit said, saluting.  He, of course, would have no objections to following Rio’s—or rather, Merag’s—orders.  Akari would defer to her in terms of how to not die in space, but…beyond that, she’d make sure she did what she had to in order to secure Yuma’s and the other kid’s safety.

“Ship’s docking,” Durbe said.  “I’m not even going to have him land, just get on and go.”

Rio nodded sharply.

“Let’s go,” she said, marching past.  “Don’t dawdle, Thomas!”

“Who the fuck said I was dawdling,” Thomas muttered as he hurried to catch up.

Akari jogged after them with Alit behind her.  It was only after she left the room that it occurred to her.  Mizael, Durbe, Alit, Rio, Gilag here, and Ryoga in space…

Weren’t there _seven_ Barian Emperors?


	7. Ultraviolet

The ship just got bigger and bigger, it felt like.  Yuma looked nervously around a corner for any sign of the strange fake Mihael—or better, the real one.  But yet another corridor stared back at him.  What had happened to this ship?  There was no _way_ that it was this big.

He tried his D-Gazer again, trying to get a call to someone— _anyone._   But nothing went through.  He couldn’t reach Kotori or anyone in the cockpit, or Ryoga, or Mihael, or anyone back on Earth, either.  He wondered if Astral could see any of this—ze was supposedly inside the ship.  Would ze notice that the ship was _way_ bigger than it was supposed to be?

He swallowed, his tongue feeling thick and dry in his mouth.  He wanted some water…geez.  He didn’t know what was happening…or even if anyone was safe.  His heart clenched up.

He chose another random corridor.  What did it even matter? This place didn’t make any sense, and he kind of had the feeling no matter which way he went, he’d find yet another fork.  He frowned as, indeed, he was right, coming to the end of the hallway and finding another fork going both ways.  Maybe he should start trying some of these doors.  He took the right corridor, pretty sure that that was the way closest to the cockpit, and started tugging on each door, one by one.  All of them were locked, and when he tried to beat one down with his shoulder, he just ended up with a bruised shoulder.

Yuma rubbed his shoulder, wincing as he kept walking.  This was just going forever and ever…what was going on?

A thought occurred to him.  He remembered, vaguely, a horror movie that he hadn’t been supposed to watch—Akari had rented it for herself, and told him that if she saw him peeking from the stairs, she would ground him.  He had gotten around that by hiding in her office and peeking from that doorway, curious about what Akari didn’t want him to see.  The story had been about some kind of slime monster, but in order to eat people, it would create massive illusions to draw people closer in. The illusions were so real that they seemed to make space even bigger than it actually was.

 _Maybe I’m inside a really big illusion_ , he thought.  _And…and that fake III is…the monster that wants to eat us._

But if it was taking on the face of Mihael…what happened to…

No!  He smacked himself on both cheeks.  He wasn’t going to think about stuff like that!  Mihael was safe!  He had to be!

Yuma tugged on the next door, more from routine than anything else—this one opened.

He was so unprepared for the door to give that he actually fell backwards with the door swinging open, letting go of the handle and landing on his butt.  He groaned, rubbing his back.

The door yawned black at him, completely dark inside—the faint, dull light from the hallway barely edged inside.  Yuma felt a chill pass over him—and it wasn’t just from the cold air that rushed out of the room when he had opened the door.

That didn’t look safe at all, he thought, trying to squint through the darkness.  But…everything else looked exactly the same.  He had to try something different, or he would go insane.

 _Maybe this is the way the monster is leading me to its big slime mouth_ , he thought, shuddering.

He hefted his Duel Disk just in case, turning on the screen so that the glow sort of lit the way.

Cautiously, he stepped inside the dark room.  He reached out with his free hand, the other holding out his Duel Disk, feeling around.  The light from the Disk didn’t go very far, but it was enough for him to tell that the floor was the same cold metal as the hallway outside.

He felt along the side of the wall near the door.  Was there a light switch, maybe?  But nothing came to his fingers except more cold wall—for all he knew, he could just be in another hallway, just without emergency lighting.  With a frown, he turned his Duel Disk brightness waaaay up, past where Akari would be mad at him for wasting the energy.

The light finally managed to spread more than a few feet ahead of him, and he turned the screen towards the space to see what was here.

What…was that?

He bit hard on his lip as he edged closer to the strange, bumpy black shape that his Duel Disk was illuminating.  It was…all over the floor.  Like thick, crusty spider webs, spreading across the floor and up the wall.  He accidentally stepped on one and it crackled with his weight, almost breaking.  Where were they coming from?  It looked like tree fungus or something…

He lifted his light upwards.  And choked.

There was—a face—

He scrambled back a bit, choking on a scream that didn’t come.  The pale white face did not move, but it vanished a bit into the darkness as Yuma retreated with his light.  Yuma hesitated, heart thumping in his chest.  But there was no sound.  Nothing came towards him.  He waited for a few moments until his heart rate finally slowed down.  Nothing moved, and nothing made a sound.

He edged forward another step, lifting up his light.

The pale face came back into view, and Yuma covered his mouth with one hand to still the bile that rose up in his throat.  The face was stretched and bloated, the eyes gone, hair dissolved save for a few floating strands.  It was barely recognizable as a human, Yuma thought with a horrified shudder.  He was reminded of a documentary he saw in school once, about bodies that had been found in bogs—alien-like and shriveled up like a raisin, but still…with a human face. 

The light bent weirdly around it, and Yuma realized it was because it was…suspended in something.  He stepped a little closer.  Yeah, it was inside of something, like a semi-clear pocket, with fluid inside.  He moved his light around, and saw that black fungus stuff was growing all over the pocket, so that only one little bubble was still transparent enough to see the body inside.  Or maybe, not growing all over it…maybe that was what the whole thing was.  Just a thicker growth of this…weird fungus.

B-but what was a body doing in it?  And where had the body come from in Astral’s ship??

 _There’s no way this is real,_ Yuma thought.

He pinched himself, hard enough to make himself squeak.  But he didn’t wake up.  N-not a dream, then.  But…but there was no way.  There wouldn’t be a human body in Astral’s ship, much less in some weird cocoon…

Unless…

Yuma’s heart dropped into his stomach.  N-no.  It couldn’t be…it wasn’t…it wasn’t _Mihael_ , was it?

Yuma briefly panicked.  Whatever creature or creatures was in this ship, it took Mihael’s face—s-so what had happened to Mihael when he left the cockpit?  Could the creature have stolen him, shoving him into this cocoon, and killed him—

No!  Calm down!  Yuma hit himself in both cheeks again, tears bubbling to his eyes.  Mihael was alive!  He wouldn’t die after everything they had already been through!

He swallowed and forced himself to look harder.  The person was unrecognizable due to the body’s deterioration, but…but the face was definitely the wrong shape.  It looked like an adult.  And those remaining strands of hair…not only were they a bleached white, but they were way too long to be Mihael’s.  Even when he straightened his hair, it only fell to just below his chin, at most to the nape of his neck in the back.  This hair was long enough to be down the person’s back.

Yuma’s heartrate slowed down after a very long time.  It wasn’t Mihael.  And it couldn’t be Ryoga, or Kotori, or anyone else, either.  The body was too big, the face the wrong size, and the hair was wrong.  O-okay.  It wasn’t one of his friends.

He felt a twinge of guilt for the relief—regardless if it wasn’t his friends, someone here was dead…and he still didn’t know how or why.  Stomach twisting, he edged around the cocoon and further into the room.

Oh god, there were more.

Behind this one, there were three more pods.  His heart dropped into his stomach.  W-would he find Mihael in one of these?

He checked the first one.  The person inside looked nearly identical to the first one.  He looked into the second pod—again, almost an identical copy.  The third one was the same.  It was almost like being in a weird horror video game with some of the same assets being used over and over.

Satisfied that his friends weren’t here, Yuma found himself at the back of the room.  There wasn’t a door here, so…dead end.  He would be more than happy to go back into the hallways after this.

He turned back around, ready to go back towards the hallway.

The door was gone.

Yuma’s heart jumped into his throat.  He bolted across the room, crackling across the fungus on the floor.  He felt along the wall—maybe it had closed?  But no, it was gone, the door was _gone—_ he went all along the wall with his Duel Disk light but he couldn’t even find a handle.

And then he heard the squishing sound.

He froze.  That was…from behind him.

He slowly, _slowly_ turned around.  And for a moment, he simply whited out with sudden panic.

Because the body in the pod nearest him wasn’t the strange, shriveled body anymore.

It was Mihael—pressing his face and hands against the pod, thrashing against the sides as though desperate to escape.  His mouth opened and closed, eyes wide with panic—was he suffocating?  One hand clawed at his throat.  The fluid inside—it must not be breathable!  But wait, that hadn’t been Mihael a moment ago—was this an illusion?  Or had the nondescript bodies before been the illusion??

Mihael’s air went up in bubbles in the fluids, his eyes rolling up into his head.

Yuma bolted forward off the wall.  He reached desperately for the pod, grabbing hold of the fungus to try and rip it open, do something, get Mihael out of there—

He felt cold, slimy hands on his wrists.  He opened his mouth to scream, but the air rushed out of his lungs as he was yanked forward.  For a moment, everything was cold and wet and squishy—he felt a strange, static-y electricity run down his arms and set his hair on end and a chill claimed every inch of his body—

And then everything was black.


	8. Corona

_BANG!  BANG!  BANG!_

Kotori curled up in on herself, crushing her hands over her ears.  Tears blurred her eyes so she squeezed them shut.  She felt Tetsuo wrap an arm around her.  He squished her close—not that they weren’t already squished, with her, Tetsuo, and Todoroki all crunched together under one of the consoles.

They had lost contact with Kaito only a few minutes ago, but it felt like hours.  Her useless D-Gazer was clenched in her hand against her head.  Tetsuo had pulled out some of the chairs that would come out of their sockets and propped them up against the door.  They didn’t think whatever it was could get through the thick metal but…there was always the possibility.

The banging echoed through the cockpit, and slowly faded away.  Kotori shuddered.

“Is it gone?” she whispered.

“L-let me check,” Todoroki mumbled.

Kotori almost grabbed for him, to make him stay under the desk with them, but he had already crawled free to look at the readout.

“Um…I don’t see any life signals out there.”

Kotori let out a huge breath.

“W-what about in the rest of the ship?”

“Um…”

Todoroki didn’t respond for a few moments.

“This…this all looks too confusing for me,” he said.  “I don’t…really get it.”

Kotori didn’t want to move, but Tetsuo squeezed her shoulder lightly before crawling out from under the console himself.  It was cold under there without both of them, so she tucked her D-Gazer into her breast pocket and hurried to follow.

Kotori got back up and around the console to see what Todoroki was looking at.  He shifted from foot to foot, biting his lip.  He jabbed a finger at the readouts.

“Is it supposed to do that?”

“Why would I know?” Kotori mumbled, but she looked anyway.

The ship readout was showing a thousand life signals—too many to even fit in the ship, as though there were thousands of things clinging to every wall and corridor.  But then, just as suddenly, they flickered out, and the ship appeared empty—except for the cockpit that they were standing in, which seemed to remain stable with just the three of their own signals.  The next moment, there were only seven other life signals in the ship, some of them moving—Yuma and the others?  But wait…Kotori counted in her head.  Ryoga, Yuma, Mihael, Cathy, Tokunosuke, Astral…that was only six.  What…what was the seventh…?

But then the next moment it was showing hundreds of life signals again, and then nothing, and then twenty signals, and then a hundred again.

“It’s probably not supposed to do that,” she said quietly.

“Let’s check the cameras,” Tetsuo said.

He walked over to the camera wall before anyone could agree, sticking out his lower lip in an angry sort of nervousness.

“I don’t think these are supposed to do this either,” he said.

Kotori hurried over.

The camera feeds were changing right before her eyes.

First, it would look normal for a moment.  But then static would run across it, and they’d be looking at something that didn’t look like the ship at all.  Cameras stared out into hallways that Kotori wasn’t sure existed, or big engine rooms that looked like the wrong kind of technology for this particular airship, or creepy looking lab rooms with big tubes full of green liquid that almost glowed.  The views kept changing, flickering in and out of sight, almost like a weird video game glitch.  Sometimes two images would seem to try and occupy the same camera at once, and the walls would seem to glitch through each other.

“What is going _on_?” Kotori mumbled, tears bubbling in her eyes.

“The radar is doing the same thing,” Todoroki said, hurrying to the opposite console.  “Look at this—it keeps telling us we’re surrounded by a bunch of floating objects, but then they disappear again.”

Kotori didn’t even want to look—she was so dizzy.  She almost fell over, but Tetsuo grabbed her shoulder, holding her up.

“I’m scared,” she mumbled.

“Me too,” Tetsuo said, as though trying to comfort her.  “It’s going to be okay, Kotori.”

Kotori didn’t know—she had no idea if it could ever be okay, not until she could see everyone where they were supposed to be.

_Bang bang bang bang!_

Kotori screamed, clapping her hands to her head.

“N-no, wait, that sounds different,” Todoroki said.

Kotori didn’t want to listen—she didn’t want to!

And then the voice floated through the door.

“Kotori?  Tetsuo?  Todoroki?”

Kotori gasped, hands falling from her ears.  That was…

“Yuma!” she gasped, whipping towards the door.  “Y-Yuma!”

She and Tetsuo moved forward almost at the same time.  Tetsuo ripped the chairs out of the way and Kotori flapped her hand for the button that would open the door.

The door flew open.  Yuma stood in the middle, his eyes wide and face pale.  A smile broke over his face.

“Kotori!”

“Yuma!” she cried.

“Yuma!!” Tetsuo said.

Kotori sobbed and flung herself through the door, throwing her arms around Yuma’s shoulders.

Then she flinched, because he was—he was cold.  _Icy_ cold.

“A-Are you okay?” she said.  “You’re so cold!  What happened out there?  What’s wrong?”

“I’m fine,” Yuma said, smiling.  “Are you okay?  Can I come in?”

It…it sounded like he was okay.  He looked all right.  He was just…he was so cold to the touch…it was like touching him leeched the heat out of her, and she felt cold spots all over her arms, even through her sleeves.

Tetsuo tried to step forward through the door and Kotori threw her hand out automatically, eyes fixed on Yuma.

“What’s wrong?” Tetsuo said. “Kotori?”

Kotori searched his eyes.  They looked like Yuma’s eyes.  The same old bright red.  She bit her lip.

Yuma blinked at her, and tilted his head.

“What’s wrong, Kotori?” he said. 

“I…I don’t think you should come in,” Kotori said, not sure why she was saying that.

“Huh?  But why not?” Yuma said.  “If I come in I can help you guys find everyone.”

“Kotori, is something wrong?” Tetsuo said.

Something was wrong.  Something was very, _very_ wrong.

“You’re not…Yuma…” Kotori mumbled, backing up.

Yuma’s head tilted further—too far for a human head to be able to move naturally, and Tetsuo swore.

“What’s wrong, Kotori?” Yuma said again. “What are you so afraid of?”

The end of his sentence twisted and hollowed, his voice going cold and dead.  Kotori choked.

She jumped backwards as Yuma’s shape bulged and exploded.  A scream died in her throat before she could even release it—it was beyond horrifying, seeing Yuma’s body bulging and bubbling and changing colors.

When she was nine, her mother had let her come up into the mountains with her and her kendo students for their training camp.  She remembered very clearly waking up one night and stumbling towards the outhouse, only to have her sandaled foot bump into something very large—for just a few moments, she had thought it was simply a snake that would run away at her disturbing it.  Until her flashlight had swung down and revealed a very large mountain leech curling towards her toes.

So when Yuma’s body finally stopping warping into horrifying shapes and settled, she almost wished that he had just kept up doing the horrifying shapeshifting.

A gigantic mountain leech, twice her height, flopped into the hallway.  It swung its massive head blindly through the hall—she had thought it was horrifying enough when it was only the size of a small snake, but when it opened its mouth, it had far more teeth than she thought an ordinary leech should.

She couldn’t even scream.  She just felt faint.  Distantly, she felt Tetsuo’s hand on her arm, thought she heard him saying something, but she couldn’t move as the leech edged itself closer and closer and closer—

She finally screamed when the teeth latched around her arm.  Tetsuo was shouting, screaming at her, shaking her slightly and it only made the bite feel worse.

But then all at once her arm was ripped free of the leech’s mouth and Tetsuo was dragging her inside, shouting at Todoroki to close the doors, close the doors right now!  The doors slammed shut again and Tetsuo pulled her to one of the still standing chairs.

“Kotori!  Fuck, Kotori!  What happened?  What’s wrong?”

It hurt—it hurt so bad!  Her arm was bleeding and there was a disgusting greenish pus coming with it, and her head was spinning—what was that thing, why had it looked like Yuma, why was she so _cold_ —

“Kotori!”

Kotori managed to come back to herself, tears rolling down her cheeks.

“It hurts,” she mumbled. “T-Tetsuo, it hurts.”

“What happened?  What bit you? Fuck, how did this happen?  Where did Yuma go?”

Kotori felt her throat close up.

“You…you didn’t see it…?”

“See _what?_   All I know is that I saw Yuma just disappear and you started screaming!”

_BANG!  BANG!  BANG!_

Kotori flinched, clutching at her bleeding arm.  Tetsuo swore.

It was trying to get in again, Kotori thought distantly, dizzy.  That thing was trying to get in again.


	9. Redshift

“All right, we’re nearly there,” Gilag called back over his shoulder.  “Start looking alive.”

“As opposed to looking dead?” Thomas said, rolling his eyes.

Rio stomped on his foot, and he hissed irritably at her.  Akari just grimaced.  For real, was that necessary…

Well, she supposed they were all on edge.  It was to be expected.

“Ah, almost there?  Guess that means you can’t turn around now, right?”

Who was _that_? Akari thought, blinking and she glanced around the tiny ship.  She didn’t recognize that voice—and Alit was the only one next to her, and he looked just as confused.

She yelped, and she heard Thomas swear, as the air in the spot beside her rippled, and a new shape appeared.  That kid with the carrot-top hair materialized from thin air, and stuck his tongue out at them, his hands behind his head.

“Vector?” Rio snapped.  “What the hell?”

“How long have you been there?” Alit said.

“Since you all took off,” he said, grinning.  “What?  You thought you were going to on an adventure without little old me?”

Rio looked, for a moment, like she might actually start spewing smoke from her ears.  Akari didn’t really know much about this particular Barian Emperor.  She had met the kid once or twice, and seemed to recall him being in school with Yuma before the whole Barian World shit went down.  Yuma, however, had never officially introduced her, and the other Barian Emperors didn’t seem to like talking about him.  Even Alit kind of avoided the question.

“Bastard,” Rio hissed at him.  “What are you planning?”

“Why, I’m hurt,” Vector said, putting a hand to his chest and looking mock injured.  “Why do you have to think that I must be up to something?”

“Because it’s _you_ ,” Alit said, leaning forward to look around Akari and glare at him.  “You’re always up to something.”

Vector faked looking pouty and upset, trailing one finger down his cheek to indicate a tear.

“Is it so much to think that maybe I was worried about Yuma-kun, and wanted to help?”

“Why’d you hide yourself, then?” Thomas said, looking the Barian up and down suspiciously.

“Because clearly, Ice Queen Dearest would have said no.  Besides, I heard—you said you only had space for five people in this ship.  I know how you all feel about little old me…you would have cut me off.”

Seriously, what was this kid’s deal?

“Listen, it doesn’t matter,” Akari said, cutting over all of them. “He’s here now, and he’s right, we’re too far along to turn around and send him back.  Besides, what could it hurt to have an extra pair of hands?”

“When it’s Vector’s hands?  It could be a lot of hurt,” Rio said, glaring.

“So much for second chances,” Vector said, faking tears again.  “I thought you had forgiven me, Rio dearest.”

“If you ever call me that again, Vector, I will personally rip your esophagus out,” Rio snapped.  “And as long as you’re here, you _will_ listen to me.”

“If I feel like it,” Vector said, putting his hands behind his head again.

Rio half stood from her seat, looking positively murderous.  Fuck, Akari had no idea what was going on between these fucking aliens, but she didn’t have time for it.  She started to stand as well, just to break up the fight she could sense brewing.

And then Gilag swore.  The lights flickered.  Akari yelped as she lost her feet, falling back into her seat again.  The pod swerved and twisted, almost turning upside down.

“Gilag!” Rio shouted.  “Gilag, what’s wrong?”

“Lost control of the ship,” Gilag grunted.  “Everything’s shutting down—”

He let out a faint roar, his whole body heaving as he ripped the wheel around, sending them swerving to the side.

“Alit!  Docking gear!” he shouted.

“On it!” Alit shouted, leaping up and almost falling.

“We’re going to crash into Astral’s ship and I want us to stick,” Gilag said.  “Brace!”

Alit punched buttons into the wall and Akari just grabbed a tight hold of the seat beneath her, shutting her eyes and bracing for impact—

They hit hard, rattling the entire insides of the ship.  Akari almost bit her tongue, and she did bite the inside her cheek, the faint taste of blood spreading over her tongue.  Her head cracked against Vector’s shoulder and then Vector slid and slammed into Akari’s side, causing them both to slide down the seat and crash into Alit, taking him down to the floor.

And then, just as suddenly, all the shaking stopped.  Akari coughed, a tiny bit of blood from her cheek coming up with it onto the floor.  Vector was on top of her, and after a beat, he managed to push himself up, coughing.  She sat up slowly, one hand to her head to check for dizziness.  The pod was pure black for a moment.  Then the emergency lights came on, lighting them all up with a faint, eerie red glow.

“Everyone all right?” she said. “Everybody who’s conscious, say something so that we know.”

“I’m alive,” Vector said.

“Unfortunate,” Rio coughed.

“Still in one piece,” Thomas said, groaning.

“Same,” said Alit, still on the floor.

Gilag just raised his hand and flopped it against the wheel weakly.  Fuck.  Akari stood up and walked carefully around Alit, leaning down over Gilag’s shoulder.

“You still with us, big guy?” she said.

Gilag grunted.  Oh fuck—his forehead was bleeding.  He must have hit his head on the wheel.

“Rio, do we have first aid shit on this thing?”

“No,” Rio said, swearing as she stood.  “We didn’t really need it when we were Barian, minor things just healed up.  What happened?”

“I think Gilag’s given himself a concussion.  He’s bleeding from the head.”

Rio stood up and picked her way around Alit, leaning over Gilag’s other shoulder.

“Astral’s ship should have a medbay, the Astral were more fascinated by medical science than we were,” Rio said.  “For now…Gilag, this is going to be cold.”

She bit her lip, carefully placing her hand against the cut.  Gilag sighed deeply as the ice spread from Rio’s fingers, sealing up the cut.

“That will at least halt the bleeding, and my ice should help speed the healing.  Can you walk?”

“I think so, Merag-sama,” Gilag said.

“Don’t force yourself,” Rio ordered him.  “Thomas, Alit, are you both all right?  Help me get Gilag into Astral’s ship.”

Alit opened up the door from the docking side.  Their wild crash against Astral’s ship had been lucky, it seemed.  They were able to dock against a point where the door could let them inside.

After a brief locking procedure, the first and second doors both opened, looking out into a long, dark corridor.  Akari helped Thomas get Gilag out of the cockpit.  He was ridiculously heavy, and Alit had to rush back to help support him.  They edged their way into Astral’s ship—Akari breathed a sigh of relief to be out of the pod.  This ship was much bigger: the ceiling rose high above their heads, and this big open loading bay was full of scattered crates and boxes.

Carefully, they helped Gilag sit down on one of the nearest crates.

“Well, we’re here,” Akari said.  “Now how are we supposed to find Yuma and the others?  This place looks huge…do we have a map?”

Rio didn’t answer right away, and when Akari turned around, she saw that Rio was white-faced, looking around.

“This is wrong,” she said.  “This isn’t Astral’s ship.  It can’t be.”

“What?  But we went to the right coordinates, didn’t we?” Thomas said.  “And we stalled out—so probably whatever ruined Astral’s ship ruined us, too.”

“No, but this isn’t Astral architecture at all,” Rio said, pointing.  “Look at this!  I’ve been on Astral’s ship, zir ship isn’t this big.  It doesn’t have a loading bay.  And what is even in all these crates?”

She tried to pry one open, but it didn’t give.

“This isn’t the right ship, we’ve gone to the wrong ship,” she said, looking almost panicked.  “How is that possible?”

Akari grabbed her shoulders.

“Rio—breathe,” she said. “We’re going to be all right.  Even if this is the wrong ship, there might be clues here. We’ll find them. Breathe.”

Rio closed her eyes briefly, inhaling.  When she opened them, she was back to her normal self.

“All right,” she said.  “You’re right.”

She turned towards the others, folding her arms.

“All right,” she said.  “We don’t know where we are, and our ship is down. Gilag is injured.  Our first job is to find medical aid for him.  If this isn’t an Astral ship, there should be medical supplies.”

She pointed at Alit.

“You and Akari-san will go look for medical supplies.  Thomas, you’ll remain here with Gilag.  Vector and I will search the ship for other clues.”

She turned then, lips parting.

“…where did Vector go?”

Akari snapped around, looking for any sign of the carrot-top kid.   Where’d he run off to??  Fuck.  Maybe this was why the other Barian didn’t like this kid.  He seemed like a piece of shit already.

“Dammit,” Rio said.  “I knew I couldn’t trust him…all right, new plan instead.  I don’t want any of us to be alone, so…”

She trailed off, blinking.  Akari realized what had caught her attention a moment later—footsteps.  She heard footsteps echoing through the loading bay.

Instinctively, she leaped forward, hand twitching for the Duel Disk she had brought with just in case.  Rio might be in charge, and the Barian might technically all be older than her, but by her own reasoning, she was the oldest one here.  She definitely wasn’t going to let any more of these kids get hurt on her watch.

The footsteps quieted briefly, and Akari tensed.

Then a cautious face peeked around the crates.  That was…

“Niisan!” Rio said, leaping forward. “Oh my god, niisan.”

Ryoga hesitated before he came around the crates.  Why was he…looking so suspicious?

Before Rio could run towards him, Ryoga held up a hand.

“Sorry,” he said. “But I need to ask you something first.  Rio, what was the first XYZ card that I gave you?”

Rio blinked, looking surprised.  Akari frowned.  What was Ryoga being so cautious about…?

“It was Catshark,” she said, tilting her head.  “What’s wrong, Ryoga?”

Ryoga’s shoulders slumped and his face slackened with relief.  He jogged to Rio and immediately through his arms around her.

“Thank god,” he said. “I was worried that—thing was playing tricks on me again.”

“What?  What thing, niisan?  What’s wrong?  What happened?  Are you hurt?”

“No, I’m fine, but I lost Yuma,” Ryoga said, leaning back from Rio.  He looked so relieved that Akari felt her heart tighten.  What was going on up here in this ship?  Ryoga looked over Rio’s shoulder, biting his lip.

“Nasch!” Alit said, leaping forward.  “You’re all right!”

“Did all of you come together?” Ryoga asked, looking briefly suspicious.

“We just got here,” Rio said.  “And yes, we all came together—niisan, what’s going on, you’re scaring me. This ship isn’t Astral’s is it?”

Ryoga’s face tightened.

“It is, somehow,” he said.  “I don’t know what happened.  We went down to the engine room, and Astral decided to try and enter the ship’s program zirself to see what was wrong.  Then we got a call from Kotori and Yuma ran off.  When I tried to follow…”

He looked around, a faint nervousness dancing over his face.

“This whole environment happened,” he said.  “I don’t know where we are, but it must still be Astral’s ship.  Something is…messing with it.”

“To make an entirely new ship?” Thomas said.  “How the fuck?”

“Don’t look at me,” Ryoga snapped.  “I don’t know.”

He shook his head, and paled briefly.

“There’s something else in here,” he said.  “Something that can change shape.  I ran into it a bit ago—it looked like Yuma at the time.  I found out quickly that it wasn’t him, but that’s…that’s why I was cautious.”

Akari’s heart clenched up.

“Yuma,” she said.  “Where is he?”

“I don’t know,” Ryoga said, looking down.  “I’ve been looking everywhere but…this place is a goddamn maze.”

“We’ll find him,” Rio said soothingly, briefly stroking her brother’s hair.  “Calm down.”

“What about Mihael?” Thomas asked.

Ryoga bit his lip.

“I haven’t found any sign of him either,” he said.

Thomas swore.  Before anyone could stop him, he started storming off.

“Wait!” Akari said.  “We can’t get separated.”

“Fuck you!” Thomas said.  “My brother is out there all alone, and I’m not fucking abandoning him again!”

Akari made a swipe for him, but Thomas was faster.  He bolted off.

“Idiot!” Akari shouted.  She should go after him, she thought.  Make sure no one was left alone.  But the more they separated, the more in danger they would be, and if she couldn’t keep up with him and got separated the way Ryoga had from Yuma…

“Fuck,” she groaned. “Fucking—shitheel.”

She ground the heels of her palms into her forehead.  Then she whipped around towards the others.

“Fuck him, we’ll find him,” she said.  “What do you want us to do now?”

Ryoga swallowed thickly.

“Kotori and the others are still trapped in the cockpit.  We need to find our way there,” he said.

“Gilag is hurt too,” Rio said.

“I’m fine,” Gilag said, suddenly standing up.

“Gilag, no, sit down,” Rio said.

“Merag-sama, I will be fine.  I’ve taken worse hits to the head.  We don’t have time to worry about me.”

Rio looked worried, but she didn’t argue.   Ryoga squeezed her arms.

“All right, if you’re really sure you’re okay, Gilag, I want you, Alit, and Rio to find your way to the cockpit,” he said.  “Akari and I will try and look for Yuma and Mihael.”

Akari blew out once. She was glad he had said that.  She was worried about Kotori and the others, of course, but…if she had to wait to look for Yuma, she might lose it the way Thomas had.

“Be careful,” Rio said.

“You too,” said Ryoga.  “And if you see anyone that you think you should know, come up with a new question to ask to confirm.  Whatever this creature is, it doesn’t seem to have any of the person’s memories.  It didn’t know something as simple as the name of Utopia when it took the form of Yuma.”

Rio nodded.  She stepped back with Gilag and Alit, and Ryoga turned towards Akari.  But then Rio hesitated, glancing at Ryoga.

“Oh,” she said. “And…Vector’s here.  Somewhere.  He disappeared when we got here.”

Ryoga hesitated, lips parting.  Then he swore.

“Oh, great,” he said.  “What else can go wrong today?”


	10. Blueshift

Vector could smell it the moment they entered the ship—not only was this very much Astral’s ship, despite the way it looked, but there was something here that definitely should not be here.

He peeked around the corner, squinting through the dark.  He chafed at the pace, but caution was always advised in unknown situations like this.  You never knew what you were going to run into.  Carefully, he edged around the corner and walked at an easy pace, hands in his pockets.  There was something here, watching him.  He could sense it.  It wouldn’t do to let the thing know that he knew, though.  Whatever was watching him was ancient and knew better.  So outsmarting it, without knowing what it was, would be one of Vector’s greatest challenges yet.

In spite of himself, and the situation, he felt a faint buzz of anticipation.  God, but it had been so long since he had had a real challenge.

 _It’ll reveal itself_ , he thought, sauntering calmly down the hallway.  _Patience is key._   He had a lot of patience.  He had waited thousands of years before he murdered Nasch that second time.  He could wait a few extra moments for a predator to reveal itself.

A soft squeaking sound caught his attention.  That was…a sneaker, he thought.  Coming from somewhere behind him.

He turned around without rush, peering through the shadows.  Something moved from out behind a pile of crates, stumbling and almost tripping.  _Ah_ , Vector thought.  _There you are, Yuma-kun._

Yuma looked like a mess.  His face was white and smudged with dust, and his spiky hair was fraying a bit at its edges.  He had one cut on his right shoulder that seemed to have stopped bleeding a while ago, and some nasty bruises blossoming across his throat.

Vector tried to keep his face smooth, so that no one, especially not Yuma, would see the brief spike of absolute rage that passed through him.  Who the fuck had said anyone was allowed to touch Yuma like that?

“Yuma-kun,” he called, waving one hand in the air.  “Over here, Yuma-kun.”

Yuma’s face swung towards him—and for a beat too long, Yuma just stared at him, eyes blank.  Vector’s hand slipped slightly.  Regardless of the circumstances, that was a very un-Yuma-like face.  It was almost like Yuma didn’t recognize him…?

The moment passed and Yuma’s eyes bubbled with tears.  He looked…scared.  That wasn’t a face that Vector was used to seeing.  Another faint tremor of anger passed through him.  Still, he didn’t move as Yuma half stumbled towards him.  His skin was crawling…something felt off.

He knew what it was when Yuma opened his mouth and the wrong name tumbled out.

“Shingetsu,” he said.  “Where did you come from?”

Yuma had not called him Shingetsu in months.  Vector had asked him not to.  The name wasn’t his—and, though he didn’t like to admit it, in the wake of everything that had happened the name reminded him too much of a lie he didn’t want to tell Yuma anymore.

Vector edged away from Yuma’s attempt to grab him, looking him over carefully.  Well, he certainly looked like Yuma.  It was a clever and detailed forgery, especially with all of the injuries.  Yuma briefly looked shocked, and then hurt and withdrawn as he realized Vector had stepped away from him.  Damn, whatever this thing was, it was good.  Even Vector had had to make sure his own fake clone was far enough away or covered in enough cloaks to hide any discrepancies.

He considered, briefly, playing along.  Pretending that he thought it was Yuma and seeing what came out of it.  Maybe he would find the real Yuma in the process.

And then Yuma’s face briefly contorted.  It made Vector’s stomach twist and dip—the fake Yuma face almost seemed to swirl or pinch in on itself, like some kaleidoscope filter on a photography app.  It snapped back quickly, but not before both of them knew that Vector had seen it—the jig was up.

Yuma’s mouth opened up far too wide, then, and his mouth was filled with several rows of sharp silver teeth.  Vector swore mentally, but he only danced quickly backwards, laughing.

“Wow, that’s all you’ve got?” he said.  “Some spooky teeth in Yuma’s face?”

The creature hissed softly, but it wasn’t a predatory sound.  It was…it sounded like a…a question.  If he leaned forward, he might hear what it was saying, but he definitely didn’t want to do that.

“Why don’t you tell me where the real Yuma is, and we can end this without your gory demise,” Vector said.

For just the briefest moment, the creature went dead still.  And then its face contorted, eyes going pure white, face paling to a pale, sickly blue-white and teeth sprouting long from its mouth.

 _“MINE,”_ it hissed.  _“IT’S MINE.”_

Shit, that seemed to have set it off.  Vector backed up further, to put distance between him and it.

 _“What are you afraid of,”_ it hissed, edging closer.  _“What are you afraid of?”_

“Have fun with that, I’m not afraid of much,” Vector said lightly.

Yuma morphed in front of his eyes into something else.  It was a little disgusting to watch, as the skin bubbled and burst and swelled up, changing colors and sprouting thick mats of hair.

First, it was an enormous black spider, with thick, hairy legs, red eyes, and mandibles dripping with poison.  Well, Vector would give that some berth.  He backed off.  However, when he didn’t give it anymore reaction, the creature changed again.  Next it was a gigantic, poisonous green snake, dripping fangs as it hissed.

“You like that poisonous teeth thing, don’t you?”

The snake hissed.  Vector grinned—it looked like he was getting to it.

 _It can’t hurt me_ , he realized.  _It only knows how to make you be afraid of it.  So if you’re not afraid, you’re untouchable._

“Keep trying,” he said, laughing.  “You won’t ever have any idea what it is I’m scared of, unless you can somehow read minds.  Which clearly, you can’t.”

He ducked under the swipe of the enormous tail, feeling icy air trail after it.  The snake hissed and morphed again, this time into a bloody man without a head.  Vector just giggled at that.

“Try harder, I used to execute people like that for fun,” he said.

It let out a faint, angry hiss, and then it morphed back into Yuma, albeit a Yuma without the injuries this time, glaring at Vector with pure white eyes.

“Getting frustrated, huh?” Vector giggled.  “Why don’t you just give up.  Tell me where Yuma’s at.”

 _“Mine,”_ it hissed.  _“It’s mine.”_

Hmm, was it talking about Yuma?  Why was it so possessive, he wondered?  He didn’t have the faintest clue what a creature like this could be.  Something that fed off of fear, and that could transform not only itself, but the space it occupied?  Now that had some real talent, but it clearly wasn’t very powerful, was it?  Yuma and III had probably just fallen for it; they were both only human, after all.

He wasn’t entirely sure how to kill it yet, though.  He could figure that out later.  Besides, it seemed like it only understood the very basics of fear.  It could only take on the elements of tangible phobias.  The real scary stuff wasn’t something that you could fake so easily.

“I’ll find him myself, then,” Vector said.  “Though, I’m warning you—if he looks as banged up as you pretended to be, I won’t be happy.”

It only hissed, and lunged for him.

Vector dodged it easily.  It was slow, and stumbling.  Not at all as agile as the boy it was pretending to be.  Still, its hand managed to catch across Vector’s arm, sending a blast of cold through him even through his very thick leather jacket.  He flinched in spite of himself.  Goddamn, was this thing made of ice?

“You should have stuck to being the snake,” he said. “You could have eaten me, maybe.”

But the creature had simply frozen, staring at Vector with big white eyes.

And then a smile spread slowly over its face.  In spite of himself, Vector shivered.  That face looked wrong on Yuma’s face.

_“I know what you’re afraid of.”_

The voice was so wrong that it made Vector’s brain rattle against his skull and his spine shudder.

Before he could say anything, the fake Yuma turned and bolted, taking off down the hall.

“Hey!  Get back here!”

Vector bolted after the fleeing back.  It was gonna say something ominous like that and then run?  Not on his watch—maybe it would lead him back to its nest, and he’d find Yuma.  His heart thrummed nervously for a moment in spite of himself.  Maybe he didn’t want to find Yuma.  If this creature was truly a predator…then what would he be finding…

No—don’t think like that.  He bolted around the corner after the fleeing fake Yuma and took off.  He was so focused on the shape of the fake Yuma that he barely noticed that the world around him was starting to waver and warp, like they were running down a funhouse tunnel.

The fake Yuma took another wild turn, and Vector skidded around the corner after it.

And then he stopped.

A massive, disgusting looking mass of black fungus was growing in a huge, pulsing pod in the middle of this room.  It thumped like a heart; between the curls of thick black, rootlike fungus, a white, veiny membrane was visible.  Vector almost felt like throwing up.  What the fuck was…

His thoughts stopped in their tracks when he saw the small shape near the bottom of the pod.

Yuma laid at the foot of pod, sprawled across the fungus.  For a brief moment, Vector thought he wasn’t breathing—then he saw his chest rising and falling and he breathed out.  Wait…he had to be sure that this wasn’t another trick.

“Yuma,” he called.  “Yuma-kun!”

Yuma didn’t stir.  Vector hesitated, looking around for any sign of the creature.

And then he heard Yuma’s breath catch, and his eyes flashed back downwards.  He swore.

The fungus was curling around Yuma’s arms and legs, as though slowly consuming him down inside the mass.  No time to waste.  He bolted forward, scrambling up onto the base of the pod and up towards Yuma.  He dropped down next to Yuma and reached for the fungus.  Hopefully, it wouldn’t trigger anything just to rip him free.

His hands found something warm and sticky instead, and he flinched in spite of himself.  He turned his hands towards him.

Was that…blood…?

Yuma gasped below him, making a strange, gurgling sound.  Vector’s eyes flashed down to him.

Before he could stop it, his heart lurched, up into his throat and choking him.  Yuma was—Yuma was bleeding.  His throat was—oh god, his throat was cut open and there was blood everywhere, his eyes wide and panicked but slowly dying out as he bled out—he hadn’t been bleeding before, what the fuck—

Vector found himself looking at his own hands again and there was a knife there that he did not remember even owning.  It dripped with blood, all down to his hands and palms and staining his pant legs.

Oh—no.  No, this was fake, this was another illusion, the creature was messing with him, this wasn’t the real Yuma—he never would have—he couldn’t have—he had to breathe!! It was fake!  He had promised that he would never hurt Yuma ever again!  The Yuma laying there staring at him with hurt, horror, and betrayal in his dying eye—it was fake!

It seemed, however, too late to realize that—the fear was already crashing through his veins.

He dropped the knife, unable to rip his eyes away from the dying Yuma, a scream curling in his throat that would never release.  Cold hands wrapped around him from behind, and he found, with another uncharacteristic burst of terror, that he could not fight against them.  Fear pumped through him, tears blurring his vision, the blood still hot on his hands.

_“I know what you’re afraid of.”_


	11. Albedo

“Mihael!!  _Mihael!”_

Thomas ran down another hallway, yanking at each door as he passed.  He threw his shoulder against each one to see if it would react, or if anyone would respond from inside.  Hell, how big was this ship?  Every single goddamn hallway looked the same!  Same fucking number of doors, same exact positioning and number of crates in piles along the side—he almost felt like he was running down recycled video game screens over and over again.  Still, he didn’t stop.  This ship couldn’t be _infinitely_ big, and as long as he kept moving, he _had_ to run into someone _eventually_.

Either that, or the monsters that were probably here would have to come running to the sound of his shouting.

He threw his shoulder against another door—and this time he went all the way through.

He swore as he stumbled forward and immediately went face first into the ground, honestly not having expected the door to give.  His shoulders ached with pain and the rest of him took a moment to recover from the rattling, so he laid there for a few moments longer than he would have liked.

He groaned, sitting upright very slowly.  But every sense was on high alert—what was different about this door?  Why had this one opened?  He squinted into the darkness, with only the open door behind him to let in a stream of light.

The light went all the way to the back of the wall, illuminating the…strange, fungus like material that grew on the back wall like rotted ivy.  The fungus was all over the floor, too, and went outside the stream of light, so Thomas could only assume that it covered the rest of the walls and ceiling, too.

Whatever it was, it was giving him a weird, creepy crawly feeling to look at, so he pushed himself to his feet and backed off carefully to the door, just in case there was something nasty in here.  He reached into his pocket, picking out his lighter and clicking it on for a little extra light.  It didn’t really help unless he stepped into the darkness itself, frowning as he slowly turned around to look at the walls.  There was nothing in here, except for this fungus shit.  What was it?  He knelt down, holding out his flame towards it…huh?

He frowned.  He passed his flame near it again, but instead of making it clearer to see, the fungus just…disappeared in the fire light?  What was up with that?  He bent a little closer.  No, the fungus wasn’t disappearing it was just…fading, he thought.  Like a transparent overlay.  And beneath that…it looked like…circuits.  Thin, faintly glowing lines across the floor in tight designs like a circuit board.  He moved his flame light over another set of fungus—the same thing happened.  Instead of a fungus, it looked like circuits.  What the fuck…?

“Thomas.”

Thomas almost dropped his lighter.  He swore, jerking up to his feet and swinging around, lighter in front of him as though it would be any kind of defense.

He immediately flipped it off and shoved it back into his pocket when he saw Mihael in the doorway.

“Mihael!”

He flung himself towards his brother, throwing his arms around him.

“Oh thank fucking god, are you okay?  What happened?  Everyone said you vanished—shit, you’re so cold, what happened to you?”

Mihael briefly hesitated in Thomas’s grip, but then his arms snaked around Thomas’s waist and he pressed his head against him, shoulders shaking slightly.

“I don’t know what’s happening,” Mihael said.  “I got lost, I saw something on the cameras and I had to see what it was, and then I got lost and everything is the same, and Thomas, there’s something in here, there’s some kind of—creature—”

“Sh, it’s okay, I’m here,” Thomas said, shaking slightly.  He felt almost like he was going to burst into tears, he was just so glad that Mihael was okay.  “I’m not going to disappear on you this time, I promise, we’re going to get you home and everything’s going to be okay.”

God, he was so cold; just holding onto Mihael made Thomas feel like his heat was being sapped away.  He hugged Mihael a little tighter to try and share his own heat; he didn’t know what had happened, but Mihael probably needed first aid or something.  Could he find his way back to the others after how many turns he had taken?

“Does anything hurt anywhere?” Thomas asked, drawing back a little to look Mihael over.  “Are you injured?  And what kind of creature are we talking about?  Did it hurt you?”

Mihael seemed to be having trouble talking for a moment, his mouth just opening and closing.  His brow furrowed up—for a moment, he looked…angry?

“It didn’t hurt me,” he finally said.  “It didn’t— _shut up_.”

The voice didn’t sound like Mihael’s, and Thomas’s grip faltered.

“Mi…Mihael?”

Mihael pressed one hand to the side of his head.

“Sorry, I’m okay,” he said.  “I don’t know what came over—”

The words just seemed to stop in his mouth, like he couldn’t force them out.  His mouth opened and closed again.

 _“There’s something else in here,”_ he suddenly remembered Ryoga saying. _“Something that can change shape.”_

Oh fuck.

Thomas tried to let go of Mihael and back off—he couldn’t take his hands off of him.  He looked down.  F-fuck, were his hands…melting into Mihael’s skin?  Oh shit, oh shit…

Heat suddenly sprang up all around him, and he almost choked—the room behind him was on fire.  Mihael pushed forward, pushing Thomas a little more into the room—Thomas couldn’t extract himself from Mihael—from the fake Mihael, he was trapped.

The fake Mihael fixed its suddenly pale, full white eyes onto Thomas.  It smiled a little too widely, with teeth that were too sharp, and Thomas felt himself get even colder than he already was.

The creature pushed him back farther into the room, towards the flames.  F-fuck, there was fire everywhere, Thomas’s throat closed up.  He couldn’t even scream, he could only watch, horrified, as the flames licked ever closer.  Oh fuck, for just a moment he was there again, the fire streaking unbidden from his card, the house consumed in seconds around him, Rio screaming as the ceiling started to cave in around them and his face was burning with pain—

The fake Mihael finally released him, then shoved him backwards onto the ground, almost into the fire itself.  Thomas flinched back—the heat was so intense all of a sudden, he couldn’t think about anything except for the fire creeping closer and closer—oh god—

“Thomas!”

The fake Mihael actually startled, looking back over its shoulder.

And then Akari burst through the door, kneeing the fake Mihael in the back and sending it to the floor.  Akari started towards Thomas then, almost right through the flames.

“Watch out!” Thomas shouted, throwing his hands up.

Akari paused, blinking.  She looked around, and then shook her head, reaching for Thomas and grabbing his outstretched arm.  Her hand reached right through the flames—and she didn’t even flinch.

Thomas inhaled.

“Do you see the fire?” he said.

“What fire?” Akari said, yanking him to his feet.  “All I see is fucking—fungus trying to eat you.”

What fungus?  Thomas glanced at his own legs, but he didn’t see anything except the fire licking around his feet. 

“Akari, let’s go!” Ryoga shouted from the door.  Akari nodded sharply, and yanked Thomas forward.  Thomas gasped—he felt as though he were being popped free of something, yanked out of a tight grip.  And then the feeling was gone and they were stumbling free of the fiery room.

The fake Mihael staggered to its feet, wobbling against the flames.  He looked terrifying, illuminated against the fire with those pure white eyes and sharp teeth.  His face seemed to glitch out into ragged pixels, ripping and revealing faint patches of sickly pale blue underneath.

“Incompatible,” Mihael babbled, in a voice that wasn’t his.  “Incomp—niisan, I’m—I’m b-behind it, the real one—severing neural connection—”

The fake Mihael staggered forward and the face went blank.  Then the shape swelled and bubbled, and instead of Mihael, Yuma with pale white eyes was standing in front of them, lurching forward.  Ryoga swore and Akari yanked Thomas back into the hallway. Thomas fumbled back into his pocket for his lighter—sometimes creatures could be scared off by fire, right?  Well, like…real fire, not the fake stuff it was trying to make him panic with.  Akari’s eyes fell onto Thomas’s lighter, and before he could click it on, she snatched it from his fingers.

“What are you—?” he started.

She yanked a small canister from her belt, clicked the lighter on, and sprayed the tiny can of pepper spray through the flame.

Fire exploded past the lighter like a flamethrower, washing the fake Yuma in flames.

The fake Yuma shrieked.  Immediately, it melted—just collapsed down into a puddle on the floor that then disappeared.  The real fire seemed to flash through the fake fire, causing it, too, to vanish.  And before Akari stopped spraying, Thomas saw something else flicker, too.

“Akari!  Akari don’t stop!” he shouted, leaping into the room and ducking under the fire.

“Are you fucking—oh.  Oh god.”

She had seen it too, then.  The fire was stripping away the illusion of the fungus and showing, instead, the circuitry underneath that glowed along the floor.

And more importantly, it was revealing the mass of fleshy wires that was pinning an unconscious Mihael to the back wall.

The firelight seemed to strip away the illusion, and Thomas ducked inside, skidding to a stop beside Mihael.  His brother—the real one, he was sure, as soon as he touched his arm and found that his skin was a normal temperature—was dangling against the wall in a massive cocoon of wires.  When Thomas grabbed the wires, he almost flinched back.  They felt like _skin_ , he thought, bile rising in his throat.

The wires weren’t just pining Mihael to the wall, there were two pinned up against his temple, and another, thick tube forced down his throat.  Thomas hesitated.  He had to get Mihael out of this, but…what damage would he do?

“You guys see all this shit, right?” Thomas said.  “I’m not in an illusion of flesh wires?”

“No, I see it,” Akari said.  She had to stop spraying her pepper spray, but it seemed the firelight had done its job, because Mihael didn’t disappear under an illusion of fungus again.

“Is that the real one?” Ryoga said.

“You saw that thing—it ran,” Akari said.  “And it looks like it can only create one illusion at a time, for one person at time.”

She hesitated, thinking about it.

“And that thing…for a second, it sounded like the real Mihael was talking to us, right?  Like he was telling us that he was behind the fake one.”

“And then the creature shut him up by turning into Yuma,” Thomas said.  “Fuck…what is that thing?”

“Hell if I know,” said Akari.

She edged into the room, carefully, looking around for any other traps, and then came to stand by Thomas.  She bit her lip.

“This looks fucking nasty,” she said.  “Are those electrodes?”

“What’s in his mouth?” Ryoga said.

“Looks like some kind of breathing tube,” Akari said.

“Can we take him down?” Thomas said.

Akari didn’t look very confident, her face pale as she looked it over.

“None of us are doctors,” she said.  “So I don’t know.”

“I’m not leaving him like this.”

“And no one is telling you to,” Ryoga said, rolling his eyes.  “Fuck.  Okay, watch out.”

He marched into the room, looking over Mihael.  His tongue came out between his lips slightly as he put his hands out over Mihael, palms hovering over him.

“I’m not sensing any energy or connection,” he said.  “When that creature left, temporarily, at least, it severed Mihael from whatever…fucked up network it seems to have.”

“So we can take him down?” said Thomas.

“Just…be careful and don’t start fucking ripping them off,” Ryoga said.  “Temple wires first.”

Ryoga carefully peeled the wires off of Mihael’s forehead, and then slowly began to remove the ones attacked to his arms and torso.

“Hold him up so he doesn’t fall if I remove one that’s keeping him on the wall,” Ryoga said.  “That tube could choke him.”

Akari grabbed Mihael under one arm, and Thomas under the other.  Ryoga finished removing the wires, and then licked his lips nervously, looking at the tube.  He gripped it and slowly, slowly began to pull on it.

Mihael’s body convulsed.  His eyes bulged open and his face whitened.  Thomas almost dropped him when his fist connected with his head and he swore.

“Be careful!” he shouted.

“Fuck, I’m trying!” Ryoga said.  “Ugh!”

He popped the tube out of Mihael’s throat, and Mihael collapsed into Akari’s and Thomas’s arms.  His whole body heaved as he coughed so hard that bile and spittle sprayed over the floor and he seemed like he was going to throw up.  Ryoga surged forward and put his hand against Mihael’s chest.  Brief red energy sparked around his fingers, and then Mihael was gasping for breath, his heart starting to slow against Thomas’s side.  Mihael just sat there for a few moments, shuddering and gasping—he didn’t seem fully conscious.

“Is he okay?” Thomas said.  “What did you do?”

“I just bolstered his heart and respiratory system with some Barian energy,” Ryoga said.  “And made sure his throat was clear.  I can’t heal, but I can do that much. Hell, even Vector can do that much—Haruto’s still alive, isn’t he?”

Ryoga kept his hand against Mihael’s chest for a moment.

“He’ll live,” Ryoga said.  “He’s not going to be very strong for a while.”

Thomas just slumped, almost losing Mihael but then quickly gathering him up against him.

“Fuck,” he whispered.  “Stop scaring me…”


	12. Apogee

_BANG BANG BANG!_

Kotori startled from her daze—oh no, something was…trying to get in again…

She squinted.  Everything looked so hazy and dull.  Maybe she was experiencing blood loss.  Tetsuo kept insisting that she wasn’t bleeding, but she could see it, she could see the cut from where that giant leech had cut into her.  It was greenish and pus-filled now, oozing more slowly out of her arm.  She wondered, vaguely, if she was dying.

She heard Tetsuo swear distantly.  And then a voice floated through the door.

“Kotori?  Other guys?  Are any of you in there?”

That sound…that voice was…Alit?  What was Alit doing here?

“Go away!” Tetsuo shouted. “You can’t fool us!”

“It’s not a trick, I promise!  Ask me a question, it’s really me and Gilag and Rio!”

“Ask us anything, you two, I know most of what’s happening—whatever it takes to make you think it’s us,” came Rio’s voice.

Todoroki and Tetsuo exchanged glances.

“I don’t know any of them well enough to ask them anything,” Todoroki said.

“Honestly…I can’t think of anything either right now,” said Tetsuo.  “How would they have gotten up here, anyway?”

“From our call to Kaito?” Todoroki pointed out.  “He could have sent the Barian up here to help.”

Kotori opened her mouth, but it felt dry and full of dust.  She clutched at her arm to try and slow the ooze running down it.  Alit…and Rio…they were here…please be the real ones…her eyes bubbled with tears.

“A-ask Alit…” she mumbled.  “H-how…he met…me…”

They almost didn’t hear her, except that Todoroki was close enough to catch the whisper.  He looked nervously at the door.

“Kotori wants to know how you guys first met,” he called through the door.

“Why can’t she ask?  Is she okay??” Alit said, sounding worried all of a sudden.

“Just answer!”

“Right, right—I ran into her in the hallways at school and she appeared before me as a beautiful angel, glowing and shining and beautiful and ethereal and—”

“It’s him,” Kotori whispered.

Tetsuo didn’t question her further.  He looked nervous as he punched the code to open the door and moved some of the barricade away.  The door opened and Alit tumbled through, hitting the ground face first.  He must have been leaning against the door.  Gilag crouched down a bit to see through the door; he was so tall that he almost didn’t fit through.

“Is…is he cold?” Kotori whispered.  She was so dizzy…

Tetsuo leaned down and put his hand on Alit’s back.

“Nah, he’s warm,” he said.

“Huh?  Why are you checking my temperature?” Alit said, popping up to a sitting position.  His eyes scanned the room and fell on Kotori, and his eyes widened.  “Kotori!  Are you okay?”

He scrambled to his feet and ran across to her.  Kotori flinched as he almost touched her bleeding arm.

“What happened?  Did you get hurt?  You look so pale…”

“Kotori-chan,” Rio said, hurrying over as well.  She felt Kotori’s forehead, and her fingers felt cool—but not cold, not icy cold like the fake Yuma.  They were real.

“It won’t stop bleeding,” she mumbled.  “It won’t…stop…”

Alit blinked, looking confused.  He glanced over where Kotori was gripping, and then looked up at the other two.

“That creature found us, looking like Yuma,” Tetsuo said.  “And then Kotori just started screaming.  We brought her back in…she thinks she’s bleeding.”

“I am,” Kotori said, her eyes bubbling with tears.  “Y-you guys don’t see it…?”

She pressed her fingers harder into her arm, where the blood and pus was oozing over her fingers.

“To summarize, I believe whatever we’re facing is an illusion creature,” Todoroki said, fiddling nervously with the hem of his shirt.  “I…I don’t know how to dispel whatever illusion it’s caught Kotori in.”

“There’s got to be a medbay on this ship, right??” Alit said.  “Astral ships always do!”

“But how will we find it?” Gilag said, stepping through the door and closing it behind him.  “It was a hell of a time finding this place, you know—what with the extra corridors this place has added.”

“What are you talking about?” Tetsuo said.

“Outside, the whole ship looks bigger, and there’s a lot of halls and doors,” Alit said.

“This creature has created a giant illusion surrounding this ship,” Rio said.  “Although…it looks as though the cockpit is unchanged.  Have you noticed any differences?”

“No,” said Tetsuo.  “I don’t think so.”

“And the creature was trying to bust in here, right?” said Alit.

“Y-yeah…when it was Yuma it was trying to convince us to let it in,” Tetsuo said.

Rio hmmed softly.

“I think…this room must be the exception to its powers, somehow,” she said.  “It can’t come in unless you open the door…and it can’t affect this room.  A safe zone.”

“As long as you don’t open the door,” Tetsuo grumbled.

“So we can stay here, and be safe?” Todoroki said nervously.

“Y-Yuma’s still out there…” Kotori mumbled.

Alit squeezed Kotori’s hand.

“Don’t worry!  We’ll find him, and everyone.  Everyone will be okay.”

Rio bit her lip, clearly thinking quickly.

“I won’t know how to help Kotori without medical equipment,” she said.  “And there _must_ be some on board.  But I can’t risk taking everyone out of this room if it truly is a safe zone. Leaving it may allow the creature to gain control of the cockpit.”

She turned towards the others, hands on her hips.

“Gilag, how are you feeling?” she said.

“Fine,” Gilag said.  “The hit to my head wasn’t as bad.  I’m not dizzy anymore.”

“Good—and you had better not be lying to me.”

“Of course not, Merag-sama.”

Rio folded her arms.

“Gilag, you stay here with Tetsuo and Todoroki.  Alit, I’ll need your help to carry Kotori.  And I have to go with you because I’m probably the only one who will know how to use the Astral technology to take care of her.”

“Right,” said Alit, scooping Kotori off of her chair right away.

“You could be wandering for hours,” Gilag said, looking irritated.  “You can’t go.”

“What else can we do? Sit here and wait to be slaughtered by the creature?” Rio snapped.  “Whatever it is, we know that it’s not smart; it doesn’t know everything about whoever it impersonates.  And as long as we stay in groups of a few people, it can probably only imitate one person at time.”

“We can’t leave Kotori like this, either,” Alit said.

God, he was so warm.  Kotori felt so _cold_.  She curled up closer to him, hands tightening weakly into his shirt.

“I think she might be running a fever,” Alit said.  “She’s getting really hot.”

No, she was cold…she was so cold…

“We don’t have time to argue, we have to—”

“Guys!!” Todoroki finally squeaked, loud enough to be heard.  “The screens are doing something!!”

Everyone stopped immediately, eyes turning upwards. It was hard for Kotori to see, but she flopped her head to the side and squinted.  The main monitor, and actually, all of the screens, had all gone black.

“Is it in here?  Is it in here?” Todoroki mumbled.

“Shut up,” Tetsuo said, grabbing him by the shoulders.

The screen flickered.  Static briefly played over the edges.  An image glitched over it, like a really really old TV where the colors would pixelate over the screen a bit.  A garbled sound came out of it.

“Who’s there?” Rio demanded.  “Who’s there!”

The garble paused.  It started up again—were those supposed to be words?  It was hard to tell.  Numbers flew over the screen then, ones and zeroes in long strings.

“Is that binary?” Alit said.  “Does anyone speak binary?”

“You don’t _speak_ binary, it’s a computer language,” Todoroki said.  “And no, before you ask; I sort of know it but I can’t just…read it that quickly.”

The numbers were getting a little thicker and bigger and then suddenly.

_HELLO?_

The word pulsed on the screen, big, bright blue letters.  For a moment, no one answered.

“Hello?” Rio said softly.

The letters blinked a few more times, and then the screen went black.  More letters appeared, across all of the screens at once like a bunch of mirrors.

_CANNOT ACCESS CAMERAS. VISUAL PROGRAM CORRUPTED. DESIGNATION?_

“What is it asking?” Alit hissed.

“This is Kamishiro Rio,” Rio said.

The screens went black again.

 _THANK GOODNESS_ , the screens said next.  _PROGRAM DESIGNATION: ASTRAL-99._

“What is Astral-99?” Todoroki said.

“Dummy, that means Astral!” Tetsuo said.

“I know but what’s the 99?  And why is Astral talking to us through the computers?”

Rio’s eyes sparked with recognition.

“Niisan said that Astral combined zirself with the ship to check the program—Astral, are you there?  Are you still in the ship?”

 _AFFRIMATIVE_ , the screen read. _CANNOT EXTRACT FROM PROGRAM._

 _Astral’s…stuck…_ Kotori thought, her heart fluttering.  If Astral was stuck, then…what should they do? Ze knew the ship better than anyone…

“Astral, there’s something on this ship, we don’t know what it is,” Rio said.  “Do you have any idea?”

The letters on the screen went out.  For a moment, nothing happened.

Then numbers fled down the screen in a wild whir, the computers all running so quickly that they started to hum.  Diagrams and shapes popped up far too quickly for them to see clearly, broken up blueprints glitched behind the lines upon lines of zeroes and ones that scrolled across the screen at a dizzying speed.

“Astral!! Astral, stop!!”

The numbers immediately stopped and vanished.

 _APOLO GIE S,_ the screen read.  _MY PROGRA M  IS MA L F UN CT I on InG_

Rio swore, and Kotori felt a further chill creep through her.

“We need to find a way to the medical bay,” Rio said. “Astral, are you able to show us a path?”

For a moment, no response.  Then,

_I WILL LIGHT EMERGENCY LIGHTS DOWN THE HALLS.  FOLLOW THEM._

The screens went black.

For a moment, no one moved.

Then Rio sucked in a breath.

“All right, you heard zir,” she said.  “Alit, you and me with Kotori.  Gilag, you stay here with Tetsuo and Todoroki.  You three all stay put, and…if possible, we’ll try to stay in contact.”

“Our D-Gazers aren’t really working,” Tetsuo pointed out.

“That’s why I said ‘try’,” Rio said.  “Don’t let anything in that doesn’t confirm who it is, first.  Ryoga and Akari-san should be together, so if one of them comes on their own, be extra careful.  Thomas is somewhere off on his own like an idiot.  And if Vector shows up, don’t let him in no matter what.”

“What?  Did you not bring Vector, and so if Vector shows up it’s not really him, or something?” Tetsuo said.

“No,” Rio said.  “Just that you don’t want the fake _or_ the real Vector.”

She flipped her hair and turned towards the door.

“Alit, with me,” she said.

“Right!”

Kotori just slumped further into Alit’s grip.  She was so cold…


	13. Equinox

Cathy could have kept running for days if she had to, but unfortunately, she was with Tokunosuke.

“Can we…please…slow…down…” he gasped, stumbling to a stop.

Cathy stopped very reluctantly, shifting from foot to foot.  Tokunosuke slumped, hands on his knees for balance as he gasped for breath.  Gosh, they hadn’t even been running for more than five minutes.

Her heart vibrated in her chest and her breaths felt rough and scratchy down her throat.  She looked back the way they had come, for any sign of the fake Yuma.  But it didn’t seem to have followed them…although, the hallway they were in looked exactly the same as every other hallway.

“Where _are_ we, nya?” she said, looking around.  “This can’t be Astral’s ship, can it?”

Tokunosuke didn’t respond right away, he was too busy gasping for breath.

“Ugh…w-well…if whatever we’re up against can make it look like Yuma…maybe it can make the ship look like another ship?” Tokunosuke said.

“That’s ridiculous,” Cathy sniffed.

“Well, either that or we’re on another plane of existence all of a sudden.  Maybe some kinda weird pocket dimension that that creature brings people in to eat them.”

“Don’t talk about things like that,” Cathy said, feeling her face whiten.  “W-we’re not just…prey in a web.”

Tokunosuke shrugged.

“You asked the question,” he said, still slumped and gasping.

Finally, he managed to straighten up, his face red as he tried to slow his breaths.  He tugged on his bow tie, and after a moment, he just pulled it completely off and shoved it into his breast pocket.

“All right,” Cathy said, putting her hands on her hips.  “Now you listen here!! You can’t go pouncing off like that!  You made Kotori-chan worried!  What are you even doing, nya?”

Tokunosuke coughed when he tried to speak, and his face got a little redder.

“III was lying,” he finally said.  “He wasn’t going to check on Yuma and the others…I think he saw something on the screens.  I was trying to catch up with him so that he wasn’t going by himself.”

“Without telling anyone?” Cathy demanded, and for a minute, Tokunosuke actually looked a little guilty, biting his lip and looking down.  Cathy sighed, letting her hands fall to her sides.  “I’m glad you wanted to try to help, but you shouldn’t do things like that by yourself. You’ll make everyone worry!”

“Tell that to III,” Tokunosuke said.  He flinched at Cathy’s glare, though, and rubbed the back of his neck.  “Okay, okay.  I won’t run off without saying anything anymore.  Happy?”

“No,” Cathy said.  “But it’s enough fur meow, nya.”

She turned in a slow circle.

“But…” she said.  “How do we get back, now?”

She glanced at Tokunosuke, but he was white-faced now, and didn’t seem to have any clue either.  He coughed into his hand and tried to fix his bow tie, but then remembered it wasn’t there anymore and let his hands fall to his sides.

“Well, obviously,” he said, fixing his glasses instead.  “We should simply retrace our steps.  It can’t be that hard to find our way back.”

He squared his shoulders and tried to march forward, but Cathy grabbed him by the shoulder.

“Not so fast, nya,” she said.  “Don’t just act like you know what you’re doing cause you’re scared.  We’ll get more lost.”

Tokunosuke’s mouth briefly dropped open, and then he blushed and looked away.

“Fine,” he said.  “Then what’s _your_ plan, genius?”

Cathy hummed, sticking her tongue out slightly.  She didn’t have one either.  Part of her just wanted to stay right where they were and try to call the others until someone could come to them.  But she didn’t think that would work, either.

So instead…maybe she had to try something else.

Hoping Tokunosuke wouldn’t ask, she turned away from him and lifted her head slightly.  She opened her mouth a bit to let the air come in against the roof of her mouth, enhancing her sense of smell.

“Are you actually trying to sniff our way out?” Tokunosuke said.  “You’re not a real cat, you know.”

“Shut up,” Cathy snapped, and returned to what she was doing.

The room smelled heavy and metallic, a cold, biting sort of scent that made her want to hiss.  Something…electrical, she thought.  There was something that smelled like faint burning, making her tail twitch where it was curled up under her skirt.  Hmm.  She turned a little further.  Oh!  She smelled something like…something like…coffee?  It was very faint, but it was close.

“This way,” she said, pointing down the hallway.

“How do you know?” Tokunosuke said, screwing up his face suspiciously.

“Can’t you just trust me, nya?”

Tokunosuke just looked at her, and Cathy sighed.

“Right.  You don’t trust anyone, not even your furriends.”

Tokunosuke’s jaw clenched and he looked away.  He mumbled something that Cathy didn’t catch.

“What?” she demanded.  “You can say whatever it is, nya!”

Tokunosuke looked faintly red, but he repeated himself.

“Sorry,” he said, through grit teeth.  “I’m—still remembering how to do that. Trust people.”

He shifted from foot to foot, fists curled up.  For a moment, Cathy actually felt bad.  This wasn’t the time for them to be fighting…

“Okay, fine,” he said.  “Lead the way.  Not like I have anything better to add.”

Cathy almost said something, but she wasn’t sure what it was going to be.  So she just nodded, and started down the hall.  Tokunosuke scurried to keep up with her.

The hallway was a long one, and the scent wasn’t coming from any of the doors, so Cathy stayed forward without checking them.  For a while, there was only the sound of their footsteps echoing in the hallway.

“I don’t know my mom,” Cathy said suddenly, the words deciding to blurt out before she could think better of it.

Tokunosuke blinked.

“Huh?”

“My mom.  I don’t know who she was.  There aren’t any pictures or stories furrom my dad cause he’s always working, anyway, nya.”

“And…?”

Cathy licked her lips, and then, slowly, she let her tail uncurl from under her skirt, where it was hiding.

“My tail is real,” she said.  “My cat ears aren’t—that’s just my hair style, but um…the tail is real.”

For a moment, Tokunosuke didn’t answer.

“So…so you really _are_ a cat?  You’re not just pretending?”

Cathy looked down at her feet, counting her steps.  She shook her head. 

“I’m something, at least,” she said.  “I don’t know what.”

For another long moment, neither of them spoke.

“Um,” Tokunosuke said then, breaking the silence.  “I bet you could probably talk to Kaito-kun about it.  If anyone could help you figure out your mom, probably him.  I mean.  If that’s something you care about figuring out.  Guess I shouldn’t assume.”

Cathy blinked—for a moment, she was so surprised that she didn’t get it.  Was Tokunosuke actually trying to be helpful?

She smiled faintly.

“Thanks, Tokunosuke-kun.”

Tokunosuke just mumbled something that she couldn’t hear, and she didn’t want to ask him to repeat it.

Because then they rounded the corner, and Cathy thought she had found the source of the scent.

She bit hard on her lip, her tiny fangs almost breaking the skin.

“Is this supposed to be here, nya?”she said.

Set in the wall of this hallway, there was a long tube like corridor.  It was incredibly different from the rest of the layout, so it definitely stood out.  Cathy wandered cautiously closer, examining it.  This looked like…

“It looks like something docked here,” Tokunosuke said, reading her mind. “Like in a science fiction movie.  There’s another ship attached to the end of this tube.”

“But what would have docked onto Astral’s ship, nya?” Cathy said, looking over the edge of the opening and finding where the ships must have attached together.  “And…and what’s inside there?”

The smell was coming from down this tube, but she was positive that this wasn’t the way back to the cockpit.  She felt a faint thread of uneasiness in her stomach.  She wanted to turn around and start looking for some other way back.  But…they didn’t know what they were up against.  Maybe…

“Maybe we can find some clues in the other ship,” Tokunosuke said.  “We should give it a look.”

“But if we go across and the ship undocks, we’ll be stuck, nya,” Cathy said.  “Or there could be something bad in there.”

Tokunosuke looked a little white himself, but he screwed up his face with determination.

“III might have just vanished,” he said.  “Maybe we can find out what happened to him if we just go through to the other side.  You said you smelled something there, right?”

Cathy licked her lips.  There _was_ a new cacophony of smells on the other side of this tube.  Smells like…the imprints of people.  There could be other people here.  Maybe there was someone who could help.  It wasn’t like they knew how to find their way back, anyway…

“Okay,” she said, giving in.  “But don’t go too far!! We need to stick together.”

“Right,” Tokunosuke said, but he was already climbing into the corridor and Cathy was the one who had to hurry to keep up.

The tube-like corridor wasn’t very long, or very big.  It looked like it was just enough to let the two of them walking next to each other, so it wasn’t for more than a few people moving at a time between ships.  They came to the other end, but the door was closed.

 _If it stays closed, we can just turn around_ , Cathy thought. 

But Tokunosuke pushed a button beside it, and the door opened without a fuss.  He hopped through, and her heart leaped as she hurried to stay close.

This new room was dark, and large.  She couldn’t see the ceiling.  Tokunosuke pulled his D-Gazer and turned on the screen for light, swinging it in a slow circle.  The light revealed shiny chrome surfaces, tables that had a sink or two and a few apparatus that were probably Bunsen burners set into them.  In the shadowy distance, there was a large console and dark screens with panels full of buttons underneath them all along one wall.  Papers scattered all over the floor, burst out of fallen folders.  Some of them looked burnt or ripped up.  A broken mug lay on the floor, with a dark stain spreading from it.  Ah, Cathy thought.  That was where the smell of coffee had come from.  If the smell was still there, though, this mess couldn’t have happened too long ago…

Her heart thrummed with panic.  It looked as though there had been a struggle in here.  Were they going to find bodies…?

“It looks like some kind of lab,” Tokunosuke said.

“That’s always bad, right?” Cathy said, her heart pounding in her ears.  “Right?”

“It could be good; if anywhere has information, it would be someplace like this,” Tokunosuke said. 

He started forward, and Cathy jumped, grabbing his shoulder in order to not lose him in the dark.  They made their way to the edge of the papers, and Tokunosuke leaned down to send his light over some of them.  He frowned, turning one or two over.

“Does this look like any language you’ve ever seen?” he asked, showing her the paper.

Cathy glanced over it.  She was semi-fluent in several languages due to her father’s business trips, but no, that wasn’t anything she knew.

“It looks most similar to maybe…Arabic?” she said.  “But I don’t know it, nya.”

“Me neither,” Tokunosuke said.  “I think these might be numbers?”

He pressed his fingers to part of the paper, which seemed to have some kind of diagram.  There were carefully drawn images that could have been circuits, labeled in the language they didn’t understand.  Tokunosuke left the papers alone and stood up, picking his way over them towards the computer consoles.  Cathy stayed as close to him as possible, eyes and ears pricked for any sign of movement.

Tokunosuke hmmed when he reached the consoles, holding his chin with one hand as he looked over it.

“I don’t know anything about this,” he said.

“Let’s just leave it then,” Cathy said.  “Let’s go back.”

This place was giving her the creeps.  She wasn’t entirely sure if the cat part of her gave her a true sixth sense, but she had a feeling that this wasn’t a good place to be and her feelings often turned out to be right.

“Let me just try one thing,” Tokunosuke said.  “Okay?  Then we can go back.”

Cathy swallowed.

“O…okay,” she said.

Tokunosuke nodded, and in the light of the D-Gazer, he looked as pale as she felt.  He turned the D-Gazer back to him and jabbed at the screen.  Was he trying to call someone?  Their D-Gazers hadn’t been working…

The D-Gazer rang for what felt like far too long, and Cathy was about to say that they needed to give up and go, when suddenly, it picked up. 

“It worked!!” Tokunosuke said, his eyes lighting up.

“Hello?  You’re cutting out a little bit, who is this?”

The face on the screen was blurry and glitchy, but Cathy could tell instantly who it was.  It was…Kaito?

“How do you have Kaito’s number?” Cathy said.

“I just copied all of Yuma’s contacts when he left his D-Gazer in his desk,” Tokunosuke said.  “Um, Kaito-kun, I don’t think you actually know me, but I’m one of Yuma-kun’s friends, Tokunosuke Hyori and—”

“Tokunosuke?” Kaito said.  “No, I know you; and thank fuck, I’ve been trying to contact _someone_ up there.”

“You know we’re here?” Cathy said, surprised.

“Kotori managed to contact me a while ago,” Kaito said.  “Mizael, Durbe, and Chris are here too—we’ve sent some of the Barian up there to help you.”

Cathy felt faint with relief.

“What’s going on?  Kotori said you two had disappeared,” Kaito said.  “Where are you?”

“We’re lost in the ship,” Cathy said.

“Lost in Astral’s ship?” Kaito said, sounding incredulous.  “It’s got like…three rooms.”

“Something’s wrong,” Tokunosuke said.  “I think…something’s manipulating the space; it’s way too big and has too many hallways.  And there’s something in here that…that can change shape.”

Kaito swore.

“Are you two all right?” he said.  “Is anyone hurt?”

“We’re okay, Kaito-kun,” Cathy said.  “But we found…something.”

“I thought I’d try to call you cause…uh…you’re the only person who’d probably know what this is,” Tokunosuke said.

He lifted his D-Gazer up to look at the consoles.

“What the hell,” Kaito said.  “Where did you find this?”

“I think there’s another ship attached to Astral’s,” Tokunosuke said.  “Cathy and I were checking it out.”

“This is…fuck.  This is really old tech.  Tokunosuke, let me see that panel closer.  No, that one, the one you just passed the D-Gazer by.”

Tokunosuke did as he was asked, and Kaito leaned forward on the screen to look.  He swore again.

“What is it?” Cathy said.

“This is _old_ ,” Kaito said.  “Pre-splitting of Astral and Barian old.  This is original Astravarian tech, if I’m not getting things mixed up.  None of this should exist anymore.”

“What does that mean, then?” Cathy asked nervously.

“I don’t know,” Kaito said.  “But good job finding it—this could tell us more about what’s causing the space to look wrong, and what’s in the ship.  Are you two safe enough to stay where you are for at least a few minutes?”

“I think so,” Tokunosuke said.  “No sign of the monster anywhere.”

“Good.  Tokunosuke, I don’t know how long this connection will last, so I need you to plug your D-Gazer into one of the ports.  Let me see the panels again and I’ll tell you which one.”

Tokunosuke showed off the panels again, and Kaito told him to stop near one of the plug in places.  Tokunosuke snaked free the charger from inside the D-Gazer and pushed it into the plug.  On the other side of Kaito’s screen, they heard him clicking at keys.  He shouted back over his shoulder for Durbe and Chris to get over there.

And then, almost immediately, all of the screens came on.  Cathy shrieked in spite of herself and then clapped her hand over her mouth, and even Tokunosuke almost fell over.  Light poured over them from the turned on screens, and then numbers and diagrams and more words in that old language started to flash over it.  Cathy could hear Kaito shouting something about translations but then a loud feedback noise came out of the computers and she had to clap her hands over her ears.

The same set of symbols flashed over the screen over and over and over again.  Cathy squeezed her eyes shut against the sound and the light and then—

The sound shut off.  For a moment, her ears simply rang with the silence.  She cracked one eye open.

“Is the translation program working?” Kaito’s voice echoed through the D-Gazer.  “I’m trying to sync my screens to see what you’re seeing but it hasn’t worked yet.”

Cathy’s mouth felt dry.  She stared up at the screens, at the single sentence that was repeated on every single screen.

_It wants to be whole._


	14. Aphelion

_It paces in circles, around and around and around. It orbits the tube as one might if one was nervous—not that it knows anything about nerves, beyond what it uses to feed._

_It is cold. The cold is wrong. The cold of space is not right. It needs to be warm. It needs to feed._

_It needs to be_ whole _. Or else it cannot finish. Finish what? Doesn’t matter. It needs to be whole._

_It is remembering. Slowly. It has found the last pieces. It just needs to finish. Needs to keep getting warmer. Needs to finish patching the system._

_It pauses, staring at the tube. At the program—body?—inside. Yes. Almost. Almost. Integration is soon. Very soon…it can finish soon…it can finish…_

* * *

Akari tried her best to help Thomas carry Mihael, but Thomas was being a dick about it, so it was hard. Finally, she just hefted Mihael onto Thomas’s back and told him to deal with it; she needed her hands in case that thing came back.

She passed the lighter she had stolen from Thomas from hand to hand as they made their way through the hallways. Nothing changed. She thought about trying that thing they did with the fire again, see if it stripped away the illusion. But if the creature came back, she wanted to conserve her mace. Thank god she had never gotten around to sending this one back after the recall; the propellant was a fire hazard in this can. It had worked out.

“We’ve been walking for how long now?” Akari said, checking her watch. It seemed to have stopped working.

“Too long,” Thomas grumbled. He shifted Mihael better onto his back. Akari thought about offering to switch, but Thomas would probably just glare at her.

“We can’t have missed the cockpit so many times,” Ryoga said, finally stopping. “Fuck. This thing has done a number on this place.”

“Is this possible?” Akari said, pausing with Ryoga. “Like…how would you do this?”

“It’s horror movie magic,” Thomas said.

Ryoga shook his head slowly, looking around.

“Creating an illusion like this isn’t…outside the possibilities of Astral or Barian tech,” he said. “The detail and size is impressive but…it’s not impossible.”

“So, what?” Akari said. “You think someone from the Barian or Astral worlds is trapping us here?”

“It’s…a possibility,” Ryoga said, but he didn’t look convinced.

“Whatever that monster is, I don’t think it’s one of you guys,” Thomas said. “It was all…fuck. I dunno. It was all messed up. Like it didn’t quite know what it was doing.”

“So basically, we’re in a horror movie,” Akari said, sighing.

Ryoga, however, looked briefly thoughtful. He opened his mouth as though to say something when Akari’s ears twitched. Was there a noise coming from the door beside them? She quickly brought her finger to her lips and Ryoga immediately quieted.

They remained very still for a moment. What had she heard? Maybe she hadn’t heard anything at all. But something was…bothering her…like some kind of sixth sense. She turned her eyes to the door beside her. Then she heard it again—a cracked sort of sound, like someone distantly gasping for breath.

Every hair on end, she edged towards the door. She motioned for Ryoga, nodding at the door as she lifted her mace and lighter. Ryoga picked up immediately, moving to the side of the door so that he could open it for her. She clicked the lighter on, pointing the mace towards the flame. If something came out of that door when Ryoga opened it, she’d be ready.

She nodded at Ryoga, and he flung the door open. She shot forward into the threshold, light raised high and—

She almost threw up.

“Oh _fuck_.”

Lying in the center of the floor, half buried in black fungus, was Vector.

Blood pooled all across the floor from his body. There was a thin pocket knife lying loosely on top of his outstretched palm—it was slick with blood, too, and the red was all over his hands and face. All evidence pointed to him having stabbed himself multiple times, and it was a goddamn wonder that he wasn’t dead. She knew he wasn’t dead because his eyes flickered, and he was gasping for thick, gurgling breaths. Still, it didn’t look like it would be long before he just gave out.

“Fuck,” she said again, almost dropping her lighter and mace, but Ryoga grabbed her.

“It could be another illusion,” he said, though he looked just as pale and horrified as she felt.

“And how are you gonna ask him to confirm himself?? He’s almost dead, Ryoga!”

“Pass the lighter past him, the heat seems to break some of the illusions,” Thomas said.

Akari dropped to one knee and passed the lighter over him. It made the fungus look more like the fleshy wires that had encased Mihael, but otherwise, Vector looked the same.

“Okay, it’s him, we have to get him out,” Akari said. She shoved the turned off lighter back into her pocket and started pulling wires off of Vector’s legs.

The Barian was only half encased so far, unlike Mihael, so it was easier to free him. Blood got all over her hands, but she ignored it. Once Vector was pulled free of the wires, she turned him over very carefully.

“He’s been stabbed at least five times,” she said, feeling bile rise up in her throat. “Maybe more.”

“Did he do this to himself?” Ryoga swore. He opened Vector’s hand a bit to look at the knife. “That’s his knife for sure…”

“We need to do something,” Akari said.

She didn’t know enough first aid to deal with something like this. She pulled off her jacket, and, wincing, she took Vector’s bloody knife and cut into the jacket, tearing off a long strip.

“Help me,” she said.

Ryoga helped her prop Vector half up while she wrapped the makeshift jacket bandages over the stab wounds as tight as she could. She tore off a few more strips and tied them off. Already they were soaked through with blood—this kid was going to die if they didn’t do something quickly.

“Forget the cockpit, we have to find a med bay,” Akari said. “You said there was one here, right?”

“How are we going to find _anything?_ ” Thomas said.

And then a light came on over his head, and he swore, stepping back out into the hallway. Mihael shifted in his grip and Thomas has to pause to get him back up on his back.

Footsteps echoed through the hallways. Akari and Ryoga both froze. They exchanged glances. Akari silently removed the lighter back from her pocket and picked up the fallen can of mace. She edged into the hallway beside Thomas. Over their heads, a faint blue light pulsed softly. That hadn’t been there before…

The footsteps got closer. There was more than one, Akari thought. More than one person was coming. That was a good sign, right? The creature seemed to move alone; or at least, so far, it hadn’t been able to take multiple shapes at once.

Rio appeared first around the corner. Her eyes widened and lips parted. Alit was right behind her, with…oh god, with Kotori in his arms, she looked so pale and limp.

Both of them stopped, though, staring back at Thomas and Akari. Ryoga peeked out from the room.

“Rio,” he called, his voice breaking with relief. “Thank god. What’s the name of your Over Hundred Number?”

“Ragnazero,” Rio said immediately. “Ryoga, what’s the color of the stole that the armor in our front room is wearing?”

Ryoga grimaced.

“It’s not a color, it’s a Hello Kitty print,” he said. “And Vector put it there.”

Rio breathed out a sigh of relief, but Ryoga’s face slumped when he mentioned Vector.

“Thank god we ran into you,” he said. “Because speaking of Vector, we found him.”

“The real one?” Rio said.

“He’s real, and he’s dying,” Akari said.

Rio’s unimpressed face immediately paled. Despite her tough talk towards Vector before, she looked horrified.

“What happened??” Alit said, as he and Rio hurried down the hall to meet them. He leaned into the room where Ryoga was and swore, his eyes widening. “What the hell?”

“We need to find medical supplies, and fast,” Akari said. “What happened to Kotori?”

Kotori didn’t respond, hanging in Alit’s arms with one arm dangling. She looked limp, pale, and unconscious. Akari’s heart clenched.

“The creature did something to her,” Alit said, looking drawn.

“We’re on our way to the med bay,” Rio said. “Astral is guiding us with the lights.”

She pointed upwards at the ceiling.

“From inside the ship? You were able to contact zir?” Ryoga said, eyes widening.

“Ze got through to us in the cockpit. Gilag is with Tetsuo and Todoroki—we don’t think the creature can get into the cockpit, so they should be safe.”

Akari shoved the lighter and mace at Ryoga’s chest.

“You take that, I’ll carry carrot-top,” she said. “Let’s go, we can talk more once everyone’s not dying!”

She darted back into the room. With how much blood Vector had lost, they shouldn’t be moving him, but they didn’t have a choice. She scooped him up under the shoulders and knees, careful not to jostle him more than she should.

 _He looks tiny_ , she thought. _He talked shit but…he looks no older than Yuma. He’s…small._

He felt extra small in her arms, and far too light. She tried not to think about it.

“Let’s go,” she said.

Rio only nodded.

“This way.”

* * *

The pale blue lights turned on at each turn, leading them around. For too long, Rio felt like they were walking in circles. They had taken four lefts already.

But then, all at once, the scenery changed, and this new hallway sported a much larger set of black doors. When they approached, the dial beside them turned blue, and the doors popped and slid open. They passed through into a room that looked like it had come out of a Star Trek set, only with a lot more crystal décor. The floor was shiny chrome, and there were two medical tables that appeared to have been grown from pale blue crystal. The counter was made of the same crystal, with a pale white marble, or perhaps it was wood, making up the cabinets above the counter. Ahh…this was right. This made much more sense.

“This looks like it’s the original ship,” Rio said. “Much more Astral-like.”

“There’s an extra cot in the corner, we’ll need to open it up,” Ryoga said, pointing.

He made sure the door was closed tightly behind them, checking the dials, and Rio jogged towards the cot he had pointed out. She grabbed it and started to work on unfolded it, propping it up.

She turned around and rolled the cot towards the other two tables. Thomas carefully shifted Mihael off of his back onto one of them, and Akari laid Vector down on the other. The crystal glowed faintly, and it seemed to soften, pressing down underneath Vector’s weight. Ali hurried to lay Kotori down on Rio’s cot. He checked her forehead.

“How are you feeling?” he said.

“Cold,” Kotori mumbled. “Really cold.”

She shivered—and eerily, Vector and Mihael both shivered deeply at the exact same time. Rio felt a crawling sensation down her spine.

“Okay, Rio, you said you know something about this? Tell me what to do,” Akari said.

“Me too!” Alit said, jumping forward.

Rio had already turned her attention to studying some of the more intricate apparatus on one of the back counters. She was pretty sure she knew what all of this was. Her Barian memories were sometimes shaky, and she had never known much about Astral medical tech, but she thought she knew enough to help.

“Vector is first,” she said. “He’ll bleed out if we don’t do something. Ryoga, you’re closest to that cabinet, check for vials of a purple fluid.”

Ryoga didn’t hesitate; he just opened the cabinet and started to rummage around.

“Akari, if you could remove those makeshift bandages, we’re either going to change them out or find a way to seal up the wounds.”

Akari nodded and went to work undoing her knots.

“And me?” Alit said.

“You take this,” Rio said, passing him a pair of eye scanners. “Put them on Mihael and Kotori-chan. They’ll scan them for anything we need to be worried about.”

“Found the stuff,” Ryoga called.

“Good,” Rio said. “Thomas, check that drawer for syringes. If they’re not there, keep looking.”

In a matter of moments, Thomas had found the syringes and jogged across the room to pass them to Rio. Rio grabbed the vials from Ryoga next, and went to work injecting the purple fluid into the syringe.

“Akari, please hold Vector for a moment,” she said. “This might make him panic, but it will slow the bleeding.”

Akari held Vector by the shoulders, her face grim. Her hands and the front of her shirt were already soaked with blood. It made Rio’s stomach lurch in spite of herself—she wasn’t afraid of blood. She just didn’t like the implications that went with it.

She held Vector’s wrist, carefully angling the syringe into his arm. Thankfully, he didn’t flinch at the needle. Rio wasn’t sure she could handle it; it was enough trouble making sure her hands didn’t shake. She injected the booster fluid into his arm.

“It won’t close his wounds, so we’re going to need to clean and rebandage them,” she said, removing the syringe. “We—”

Rio, and in fact all of the Barians, hadn’t retained as much of their Barian quirks as they sometimes wished they had. When the Numeron Code had righted the universe, reforging Astral and Barian worlds into one, a lot of dimensional shifts had resulted in them being reborn essentially as humans. They couldn’t take Barian form any longer without significant effort, they healed like humans, they had human senses.

One major thing, however, remained: their connection to each other.

So when Vector’s mind suddenly crashed into hers, Rio felt it.

“Rio!! Rio!! Fuck, Alit, what happened? Pull yourself together!”

“Ryoga! What the hell?!”

She registered, vaguely, that she was on the floor. The syringe had shattered in her hand, and she couldn’t see, save for blurry shapes of light. Fuzz and static enveloped her head, and she could hear pained screams echoing around in her brain. She wasn’t sure who was screaming. It might have been Vector, or any of them. She wondered if Mizael and Durbe were feeling this all the way back on earth—she thought she could feel the buzz of their signature auras, but she wasn’t sure.

It was hard to think about anything past the attack.

“Rio!! Oh my god, Thomas, she’s not breathing, Alit’s not breathing either, what happened—”

Images were flashing over Rio’s eyes, across the backs of her eyelids. None of them stayed long enough for her to register any of them. She thought she saw diagrams, numbers, coordinates, code—code?

A deep, unyielding cold was seeping through her from her brain. Everything was shutting down. She was so cold…this was colder than any ice she had ever created or felt, she was so _cold_ …

She thought she heard someone shouting at her—Akari, perhaps? She couldn't hear...

N-No, it wasn't. It was coming from inside her brain—it was—oh god, it was Vector. Vector was shouting at her, not just her but all of the Barian Emperors over and over and over again.

_Don't let it have Yuma don't let it have Yuma don't let it have Yuma don't let it have Yuma—_

More frenzied images flared over her brain, but she couldn't remember any of them.

And then with a massive effort, Vector withdrew and the connection shut off again, leaving her gasping for breath back in her own mind. Warmth returned to her fingers—or perhaps, she hadn't been cold at all. Had...had that been what Vector was feeling? His attempt to connect with the others had been wild to create an effect in her and the others like that. He hadn't been able to control how forceful he was.

“Oh god, thank god, you're breathing, Rio, stay with me, are you okay?”

Rio needed to say something. She could feel it buzzing in her head, the desperate desire to figure out what it was that Vector had been trying to tell them. She didn't know if she trusted him, but that wild, frantic connection hadn't been a lie.  It couldn't have been.  The emotional connection had been far too raw, far too open for Vector to have let her or any of them in on willingly.

She hadn't even known it was possible for Vector to be so afraid.

 


	15. Anaglyph

“Are you guys holding up?” Kaito asked.

“We’re okay,” Cathy’s voice drifted through the D-Gazer.  “H-how’s the downloading going?”

“It’s fine,” Kaito lied.  It was going much, much slower than he wanted it to.  “Has the screen said anything new?”

“No, just…the same thing over and over again,” Tokunosuke said.  “Just ‘it wants to be whole.’”

 _What_ wants to be whole? Kaito thought.  The creature in their ship?  The computer system?  What?  He needed to download the rest of this data and get it translated so he knew what the hell he was dealing with.

“Durbe, anything that looks familiar?” he asked.

“Well, this is definitely an old Astravarian research facility,” Durbe said.  “Pre-Astral and Barian split.  But we knew that already."

“What were they researching?” Chris asked.

“I don’t have all of the pieces, but it appears to have been…military in nature,” Durbe said, lips tight.  “I suspect it was an army outpost.”

“Why would Astravaria have an army?” Kaito said.

Mizael snorted.

“Obviously…because of Don Thousand,” Mizael said.  “He was the one who attacked the unified world, and eventually led to the split in the first place.”

Right, Kaito thought, mentally berating himself.  He knew this.  Astral had been created to use the Numeron Code to defeat Don Thousand.  Somehow, during all of that, Astral and Barian worlds had been split into two.  He almost asked if either Mizael or Durbe knew how the split had come about; if it had been due simply to Don Thousand’s attacks, or the battle between him and Astral, or something else, like natural tectonic shifting of galaxies.  But it wasn’t relevant right now.  He turned his attention back to his download screen and the communication line with the kids up in the spaceship.  Fuck…he was starting to wish he had gone up there.  He felt so helpless all the way down here, only able to hear them.  He heard Mizael’s soft step across the floor and sensed him standing behind him, looking at the screen over his shoulder.

Kaito started to turn towards Mizael, but he forgot what he was going to say when Mizael keeled over.

“Mizael?  Mizael!”

“Durbe!”

Durbe had collapsed from his chair, too, and he was on the floor.  Kaito leaped from his chair and sent it rolling across the floor, dropped next to Mizael.

Mizael’s eyes were wide, bulging.  He spasmed, almost smacking Kaito in the head.  Shit, shit, shit, was he having some kind of seizure?  At the same time as Durbe?

“What’s going on? What’s happening over there?” Cathy said through the D-Gazer.

“Just keep your attention on your own surroundings!” Kaito shouted back.  “Mizael—Mizael, stay with me.”

He carefully helped Mizael turn on his side, careful not to hold him down.  This was far more violent than any of Haruto’s seizures, and he was panicking in spite of himself.  What was happening that made them _both_ have a seizure at the same time?

And then, just as quickly as it had begun, it stopped.  Mizael slumping, gasping for breath.  Although he knew better, Kaito couldn’t help but prop Mizael up in his arms, holding him steady.

Then Durbe lurched off of the floor, smacking past where Chris had been trying to check on him.  His hands grabbed for the keyboard.  He typed with a furious speed, his face white and drawn.

“Durbe, slow down, you just passed out, what are you _doing_?” Chris said.

“Can’t forget,” Durbe mumbled.  “I have to get it down before I forget.”

Mizael’s hand weakly grabbed for Kaito’s.  His breaths sounded thin and ragged.

“What happened?” Kaito said.

“Vector,” Mizael said.  “He…he must have snuck up there with them.  He…he tried to make contact with us.”

“Like _that_?” Kaito said.  “It looked more like he was trying to kill you.”

“He couldn’t help it,” Durbe grunted.  “His—he was being overridden.”

“What do you mean?” Chris said, eyes narrowing.

“I could feel it…creeping through me,” Mizael muttered, shivering.  He actually tightened up closer to Kaito—much more vulnerable than he usually liked to pretend he was.  “It was so cold…”

“Vector has been infected with a virus and we felt it when he tried to reach out to us,” Durbe said.

“What??  What kind of virus?  Are you two okay?” Kaito said.

“It can’t be passed through mental transmission, we’re fine,” Durbe said.  “It’s not a…not a medical virus.  It’s…it’s code.  I could see some of when Vector made contact.”

He finished typing, staring at what he had on the screen.  He swore.

“What?  What is it?” Chris said, leaning down to look at the code.  His lips moved as he read the numbers.  “That…that looks familiar.”

“It should,” Durbe said, looking white.  “Or rather…I wish it didn’t.”

Kaito couldn’t get up, not with Mizael still in his arms, and he couldn’t see the screen from down here.

“Let me in on the verdict,” he said, his jaw tight.  “What are we looking at?”

Durbe turned slowly in his chair.  He took off his glasses and began to compulsively wipe them off with his shirt.

“It looks like Astravarian programming,” Chris said.  “Something…a combat-oriented program?  Is that what’s up there with them?  A combat program gone haywire?”

Durbe licked his lips.

“It’s a specific combat program,” he said hollowly.  “A very, _very_ specific combat program.”

Mizael gripped Kaito’s shirt so tightly that it almost ripped.

“Vector,” he hissed.  “He was trying to tell us something.  He wanted—he wanted to tell us that that thing couldn’t have Yuma.”

“Why would it want Yuma?  Why would it specifically want Yuma?” Kaito said.  “What is going on? Durbe, stop making that goddamn face and tell me straight out!”

Durbe put his glasses back on, and stared hollowly at Kaito.

“Kaito,” he said.  “This program is Astral’s.”


	16. Apparition

Cathy and Tokunosuke both looked at each other at the same time, clearly, neither of them wanting to admit what they had just heard come through the D-Gazer.

“Astral?” Cathy said slowly. “You said...it's...Astral?”

Tokunosuke looked dizzy and pale. Cathy thought she probably looked the same.

It took far too long for Durbe's voice to reach through the D-Gazer again.

“It's....it certainly looks like zir program,” he said. “And it's...not an easy program to clone, replicate, or imitate.”

“That's not true!” Tokunosuke burst out. “Astral wouldn't do something like this!”

“We know that,” Kaito snapped back. “Durbe, explain, please—what could have caused this, if it is Astral?”

“I don't know,” Durbe said, sounding grim. “Astral isn't a program that can be tampered with so easily. Ze's a living AI in the way an ordinary program isn't. My best guess...wherever you are, whatever caused the ship to stall, when Astral entered the ship, ze became corrupted by whatever's holding the ship.

“Astral still wouldn't!” Tokunosuke said, slamming his hands on the dash. “It's got to be something different!”

“What other possibility is there?” Durbe snapped. “Do you think I like this anymore than you?? But remember what Astral was built for—ze was a weapon to destroy worlds!”

Tokunosuke looked so _mad_. Cathy couldn't remember seeing him this worked up before. Come to think of it...Tokunosuke had been really devastated when Astral had died...more than the rest of them had been able to let on.

She bit her lip, thinking about it.

“Um,” she said. “Not to interrupt, but...can Astral do things like this? Make illusions and shapeshift? It doesn't seem like something that a world-destroying weapon would be able to do. It seems unnecessary, nya.”

For a second, no one responded.

“It...it does seem like something that wouldn't be in zir program,” Durbe said slowly.

“Then it's not Astral!” Tokunosuke said. “Option closed!!”

“Well, if it's not Astral, then what is it?” Mizael's voice floated through the D-Gazer.

“Kaito, any luck on getting more data?” Chris said.

“Hang on...let's see.”

They heard the clicking of keys for a moment. Cathy glanced back over her shoulder, at the lab behind them. What were they making in here? Was this where...where Astral was made?

The screens all flickered to life all at once, erasing the words “it wants to be whole.” Tokunosuke squeaked with surprise.

The screens flickered for a moment, and then, after a crackle and buzz, it came into focus. The screen revealed what appeared to be a tall, willowy woman with her long hair pulled back in a tight ponytail. She glowed slightly, like an Astral being, but she looked more solid than the Astral people. Thin spikes of crystal poked out of her shoulders.

“Astral Project, log 24. Date: 94th of the Circrashian Orbit,” she said, holding a clipboard to her chest. “Dr. Carwhei reporting. Current vessel appears stable. Today's experiment will attempt to install the base programming into the vessel.”

She fixed her glasses on her nose, and stepped to the side so that they could see the space behind her. There was a huge, upright tube in the middle of the room, with a few shadowy figures around it, checking screen readings and muttering numbers to each other. Inside the tube was a sort of bluish shape, curled up like a fetus. Cathy caught on a breath. Astral...?

“The vessel is pure memory, forged out of sterile memories donated by volunteers,” the scientist continued. “Through extensive testing, it is unreactive. Beginning procedures for installation of preliminary programming.”

She turned around and waved, nodding. The scientists around the tube waved back, and a few bustled towards the screens, starting to click on things.

“The preliminary programming will act as a baseline for emergency procedures,” she explained to the camera. “Secondary programming will allow for learning procedures later, and tertiary programming will allow for combat. Once all programming levels are complete, we'll be able to install the Numeron Code.”

Cathy gasped softly. It had never quite connected, but Astral was _supposed_ to have the Numeron Code...ze could still work without it, clearly, but originally, ze had been installed with the most powerful force in the world. How had these people just...had that lying around?

“All right, we're set to go,” the scientist called. “Hale, initiate the initial program installation.”

The scientist turned back to the screen.

“Preliminary programming is for self-defense,” she explained. “Once installed, it will allow the program to defend itself by hiding inside a pocket dimension, and to manipulate the space to eliminate threats passively. This will protect the program during its fetal stages—”

Something sparked, and the scientist jumped, turning around.

“What was that?” she said. “What was—oh _gods—_ ”

The tube shattered. Someone screamed, others began to scramble, and then the screen went white. For a moment, nothing happened.

Then the screen changed again, and a new scientist appeared. This one looked far more like an Astral, with pupil-less, solid colored eyes, and completely glowing a pale blue. Their hair was short and spiky, and face expressionless.

“Astral Project, log 27,” they said in a clipped voice. “After the initial program failure, new steps have been taken to assure them not happening again. The Barian Protocol is now in place to prevent any volatile memories from being added to the core structure. Initial program has been frozen.”

The screen began to flicker and the scientist's voice cracked with it. Static ran down the screen.

“Wait, what's happening?” Tokunosuke said. “Bring it back!! I think we were close to figuring it out!”

“Sorry, it's—fuck,” Kaito said. “The data's all corrupted, that's all we could get out of it.”

Cathy just stood there, staring. They had just been watching...watching Astral get made. It felt too eerie.

“Well, that could account for Astral's unnatural behavior,” Durbe said. “If this is where ze was created, there may be some corrupted data floating around, getting broadcasted out to ruin the ship and then Astral once ze entered it...”

“That's not Astral,” Tokunosuke said, but his voice seemed weaker this time. “It's...it's not. It can't be.”

Cathy could only pat him awkwardly on the shoulder.

And then an icy chill fell over them, and both of them shivered.

“Did it just get colder in here?” Tokunosuke said, hugging himself.

Cathy's breath caught, and some sixth sense triggered a panic reaction in her heart, sending her heart rate upwards.

Instinctively, she grabbed Tokunosuke and dragged him to the side. He yelped, but they just barely missed the wild swipe of what appeared to be Yuma, but definitely wasn't. The fake Yuma's face contorted with irritation. Cathy choked on a scream.

“Cathy? Tokunosuke! What's happening?” Kaito shouted.

Cathy snatched the D-Gazer out of the port, downloads be damned. She staggered backwards, still dragging Tokunosuke.

The fake Yuma snarled at them, and immediately, his face exploded. Cathy shrieked, as from inside the fake Yuma, a horrible, hairy spider the size of a horse crawled out. Tokunosuke almost fainted in her arms. Luckily, she had a good enough grip on him that she managed to pull him towards the corridor to get out.

“ _MINE,”_ the spider shrieked, or maybe she was imagining it?

She didn't know, all she knew was that they needed to get out of there. She heaved Tokunosuke up until he got his feet under him and they ran.

She could hear the terrifying skitter of spider's legs behind her, and she almost cried. She just wanted this to stop—when would it stop?

 


	17. Cepheid Variable

Ryoga gasped as he tried to sit up, leaning weakly against the back of the table.  Vector was quiet, now, and he couldn’t hear even a wisp of information from Vector’s mind.  Whatever his intentions were, he had pulled back.  Ryoga felt dizzy—there had been some kind of information in that wild mental connection, but he wasn’t sure what yet.  He needed a chance to calm down, figure it out.

“You still with us?” Akari said, hand resting on his shoulder.

Think.  He had to think.  Vector had been trying to tell them something.  _Don’t let it get Yuma_.  That was all fine and well, but it was useless unless he knew where—

Ryoga’s breath caught as the message Vector had sent fell into place.

He grabbed Akari’s wrist.

“I know where Yuma is,” he said.  “That’s what Vector was trying to tell us—he knows where Yuma is, because he knows where that thing took him—he’s connected to it.  He was trying to tell us where Yuma is.”

Akari’s face whitened.  She staggered up to her feet immediately, and Ryoga scrambled to try and push himself up as well.  She grabbed his arm back and helped him up.

“Are you going?” Rio said.

“You can’t be thinking of leaving when you’re like this,” Thomas swore.

“We don’t have a choice,” said Ryoga.  “You felt it too—Rio, Alit.  You know how dangerous this is.”

Rio closed her mouth into a thin line—clearly, she wanted to argue with him, but she knew what he knew.  He knew Vector’s terror at the thought of this creature having Yuma.  Ryoga didn’t much like the idea of it having Yuma either, especially since there seemed to be something much more sinister underneath.  Why did it want Yuma, specifically?  Or was it just Vector trying to protect Yuma in his strange obsession?  Ryoga wasn’t sure, but he knew that he had to get to Yuma.

“You go out there, and you’ll be lost again,” Thomas said.

Ryoga shook his head and tapped the side of his temple with one finger.

“Vector gave us a brief look at this place when he connected with us.  He’s connected to the creature somehow, and that let him see the layout of this illusion.  I’ll be able to make it.”

“And I’m going with you,” Akari said.

Ryoga didn’t even think about arguing.  He could use the backup, and Akari wouldn’t be stopped from going after her brother.  He wouldn’t think of trying.

“Stay here, take care of them,” he told Rio and Alit.  Alit saluted, and Rio just frowned, folding her arms, but she nodded.  He turned to Akari. “Let’s go get Yuma, and finish this damn thing off.”

She nodded sharply.  She waited for him to go ahead of her through the doors.  He didn’t linger any longer—there was no time to argue, or discuss anything else.  They just needed to finish this.

The scenery had changed again when they left the medbay.  No longer was it just the empty, eerie corridors of a huge spaceship.  Instead, the creature clearly had decided to up the creepy factor.  Every wall was caked in that crumbly black fungus, crackling under their feet as they walked.  Long slimy threads of what looked like spider web hung from the ceiling, and Ryoga could have sworn that he saw something small skitter behind a pile of fungus-caked crates.  Little orbs of glowing, pulsating liquid grew from some of the walls, in sickly reds and greens.

“This is disgusting,” Akari said, wrinkling her nose as they passed.

“It’s trying really hard to scare us off,” Ryoga said.  “If something needs to try so hard to scare people, it usually isn’t very tough in reality.”

“Did you get that off a nature program, or are you just trying to make us feel better?”

He grimaced.

“Both?”

Akari rolled her eyes, and kept walking.

They had only been moving down the hall for a few moments when he heard the moaning.  He winced as the sound shrieked through the halls, high pitched at first, and then reducing down to a low, grumbling moan.  It sounded like something in pain.  His heart was starting to beat faster in spite of himself, some kind of primal nervousness rushing through his veins.

“Are we getting close?” Akari said.

“I don’t know,” Ryoga said.

“I thought you said you knew where you were going.”

“I _do_ , but…hang on.”

He stopped at a fork, checking his memories of what Vector had sent him.  It was less of an actual map and more of…more of a feeling.  An aura signature to track down.

“This way,” he said, nodding to the left.  The moaning grew a little louder, and this time it came with the sounds of scraping metal, like claws scrabbling against a door.  As though in response to his thought, one of the doors bulged as something huge on the other side smacked against it.  He swore, jumping back and lifting his Duel Disk.

“How many of these things are there?” Akari said, lifting up her own fists as though she were going to punch the thing.

“I think it’s just one,” Ryoga said, but as the doors on both sides of them began to thump and bulge like something trying to burst its way out, he was starting to wonder.  “It’s…its illusions are getting stronger.  It’s trying to make us think that there’s more.”

He tried his best to ignore it, but the sounds were getting more and more distracting.  Horrible screechs and shrieks echoed through the doors as the thumping sounds got worse.  It was like there were a thousand wild beasts on all sides of them, just behind the walls, thumping and scratching and drooling to get ahold of them.

 _It’s an illusion_ , he told his thumping heart.  _Just an illusion.  Don’t be fooled._

Still, he was feeling sick and dizzy with nerves and just plain old overwhelmed senses by the time they reached the end of the hallway and everything went entirely silent.

Ryoga’s ears rang, and he massaged his head, wincing. 

“Did we get to the end?” Akari complained, rubbing her ear.  “All right, asshole, we made it through your scream tunnel…where the fuck are you?”

Ryoga glanced down both hallways, searching for that sense of the aura again.  It was…it was here, somewhere.  Did that mean Yuma was nearby?  He opened his mouth to ask Akari to do her mace and lighter trick again, to check to see if there was an illusion here somewhere, when his eyes caught on the end of the left hallway.  Someone was standing there, perfectly still, staring at nothing.  _Yuma_.

“Yuma!” Ryoga called.  He didn’t run towards him, not yet—it could be another trick.  “Yuma, over here.”

For just a second, Yuma didn’t respond—fake, Ryoga thought.  It must be another fake.  But then Yuma started, and looked down the hall, meeting Ryoga’s eyes.  He smiled faintly, as though he weren’t quite all there, his eyes distant and glazed.  That…didn’t seem like the creature faking it like usual, but… it didn’t seem like Yuma, either.

Akari almost bolted past Ryoga, but he grabbed her by the arm.

“Careful,” he hissed.  “It might not be him.”

Akari opened her mouth to argue, but then she closed it again.  She was pale and shaking, and she let him hold her back.

Carefully, Ryoga started forward, moving towards Yuma.  Yuma still just stood there, smiling that distant, almost drugged up looking smile.

“Yuma?” Ryoga called again. “It’s me.  You know me, right?”

Yuma stirred.

“Yeah,” he said then.  “Shark-kun.  Akari-nee.”

He sounded so distant and loopy. Like he had just come out of a wisdom tooth surgery or something.  Something was definitely up.  Was the creature trying a new strategy to lure them in?  Ryoga approached cautiously, sliding his feet over the fungus and making sure he didn’t trip as they got closer.

“Are you all right?” he said.

“Mmhm,” Yuma said. “I’m fine.  How are you?”

“Yuma, I’m going to ask you a question,” Akari said, her voice rough like it was coming out over a pile of rocks.  “What’s your favorite meal that grandma makes for you?”

Yuma blinked, looking vaguely confused.

“Onigiri,” he said.  “But you already know that, right, neesan?  Why are you asking?”

Akari and Ryoga exchanged a glance.  Yuma did answer correctly, but…Ryoga had no idea if maybe this creature could learn.  Maybe if it was connected to Yuma like it had been connected to Vector, it could learn from Yuma’s memories.

“There’s a creature in the ship,” Ryoga said.  “It copies the shape of other people and pretends to be them.  We have to make sure that you’re not it.”

Yuma’s lips parted and his eyes widened slightly.

“What?  Really?  There’s something like that in here?”

He didn’t even know?  Had Yuma avoided seeing it entirely?  Ryoga didn’t think that was the case—something was definitely wrong.

“There is, and that’s why we have to be careful,” Ryoga said.  “Is there anything you can tell us that will make sure that it’s you?”

Yuma seemed to think about it for a moment, his eyes glazing over again.  He looked so out of it.  What was he doing just standing here, anyway?  Didn’t he think his surroundings were weird?

“Um,” he started.  “This…?”

He tugged on the cord around his neck, lifting up the Emperor’s Key.  Ryoga’s Barian crest around his neck instantly reacted, buzzing softly in resonation.  There was no doubt—that was Yuma’s key.  It was possible that the creature could have taken it, but…it didn’t seem likely.  This was the real Yuma.

Ryoga’s shoulders slumped with relief.

“Thank gods,” he said.  “Are you sure you’re all right?  You seem a little…off.”

“Do I?” Yuma said, blinking.  “Uh…I guess I am a little confused…I’m not sure where we are.  Or how we got here.  Astral isn’t being very talkative either.”

Ryoga started to open his mouth to respond and stopped.

Astral?

“Astral is still stuck in the ship,” Ryoga said slowly.  “Are you…talking to zir?”

Yuma blinked, lips parting.

“What?  But Astral’s right here.”

He pointed to an empty space right beside him.  Ryoga and Akari both looked, and then exchanged glances.

“Yuma, I can’t see anything,” Akari said.  “There’s no one there.”

“No, ze’s right here,” Yuma said, looking cross.  “Shark, you can see zir, right?  You’ve been able to see Astral for a long time.”

“I…there’s no one there, Yuma,” Ryoga said, his heart racing.  “Astral’s not there, ze can’t be, ze’s still stuck inside the ship—don’t you remember that?”

Yuma’s mouth opened and then stayed open, his eyes looking up at the ceiling as though he were suddenly remembering something.

His face contorted and suddenly he doubled over, hugging himself as though he were in pain.  His hands clamped to the side of his head.

“I—I—”

“Yuma!” Akari shouted.  “Yuma, what’s wrong?”

She leaped forward before Ryoga could stop her, reaching for Yuma with both hands.  His eyes snapped up—wild and fearful.

And then Ryoga collapsed—pain wracked through his brain along with a rush of sudden, unbridled terror.  He couldn’t move, he could only lie on the floor and twitch—was he screaming?  He thought he might be screaming, but he couldn’t hear it. Oh god—oh god what was happening?  He wasn’t in the ship anymore, he was standing helplessly on the edge of a dock and watching Merag go tumbling headfirst into the abyss, he was swiping uselessly for Vector as he dumped Merag over the side of a cliff, he was clinging to his baby sister while the headlights swerved and shrieked right for their car—

“Get away!” Yuma screamed.  “Get away from me, get away from me!  You’re not real, you’re not real!!”

Ryoga tried to sit upright, panic that didn’t belong to him coursing through his body and crippling him against the floor.  He couldn’t breathe, he couldn’t hear beyond the sound of his heart rushing through his veins—he felt his brain suddenly seized up with a horrible, wrenching cold that spread down through his entire body, tears rushing down his cheeks.

“Y-Yuma,” he gasped.  “Yuma, no, it’s us, it really is us, you’re—”

Through the blur of panicked memories dragged to the surface and the tears in his eyes, he could see Yuma, stumbling back with his hands over his head.  A strange, wisping light was coming off of him from behind, like cold steam rising from his back.  It seemed to flitter and form some kind of shape for a moment.  A shape…that looked like Astral.

When Yuma’s eyes opened, tears rolling down his cheeks, his eyes were a pure white.  He gasped, turned, and bolted, scrambling off down the hall.  Ryoga gasped as the hold on his mind snapped, and warmth and relative stability rushed back in.

Akari pushed herself off the floor much faster than Ryoga thought he could have.

“Get back here!” she shrieked. “You give my little brother back, you piece of shit!”

Ryoga heaved for breath, tears still in his eyes, so shaky that he didn’t think he could get up.

 _It has Yuma_ , he thought, dully.  _It already has him._

_What do we do?_


	18. Microlensing

Mihael’s eyes snapped open.  Alit startled first, as he had been checking Mihael’s temperature for Merag.

“Hey, guys, he’s awake!” Alit started, turning towards Rio.

He jumped, however, as he suddenly felt cold fingers clenching around his neck.  For just a second, he froze, mouth opening wide with surprise.  Was Mihael trying to choke him?

Then he remembered what was happening, and he easily grabbed Mihael’s elbow, pulling it down hard to make his arm bend naturally, and then slammed his other arm down across both of Mihael’s arms to force his grip to be dislodged.  He twisted quickly to pin both of Mihael’s fists under his arm.

“Guys!” Alit said.  “Something’s wrong!”

Mihael struggled to get free but Alit kept a firm grip on him while he looked over his shoulder.  He felt the heat drain out of his face as he realized that it wasn’t just Mihael.

Thomas had a struggling Kotori pinned backwards against him.  Her eyes were wide and wild, and she shrieked, actually trying to bite Thomas’s hands.  And Merag had grabbed a chair, her face completely white as she tried to hold it in between her and a Vector who was hissing and struggling to get to her.

 _Shit_ , Alit thought.

He released Mihael and shoved him backwards, just to give them a few moments while he recovered.  He vaulted the table, turning the momentum into one fluid motion where his legs pummeled into Vector’s side and sent him flying across the room, landing in front of Merag.  He put both fists up as he fell back to protect Merag—he might not be a Barian Emperor anymore, but his job was to protect the others!

He heard Merag gasping for breath, her gasps thin and panicked. 

“I can’t do it again, I can’t,” she gasped.  “I thought he was going to kill me, oh my god.”

Alit swallowed as Vector staggered back to his feet, eyes wild.  Vector actually hissed at them, coming forwards.  Alit heard Merag choke.  It was a bad idea to force Merag to have to fight with Vector.  Alit would have to take care of it.  He reached back to snag the chair from her.

“Sorry, Vector,” Alit said, though he wasn’t entirely certainly how sorry he actually was.  He pushed forward with the chair held pointing out in front of him, catching Vector in the legs.  Vector’s eyes bulged from the legs shoving into his stomach, and he gasped, slumping over the chair for a moment.  Alit didn’t pause his momentum though, shoving Vector back until he had slammed him against the wall.  That should be enough to knock him out for now.

Vector slumped down against the wall to the floor, and Alit left the chair on top of him.  He whirled to see what he should do next.

Thomas swore, releasing Kotori suddenly and waving his hand.

“Fuck, she actually bit me,” he said.  “What’s gotten into them?”

“When Vector reached out to us, he was connected to that creature,” Merag gasped.  “I think—I think it’s using them!”

She swore and ducked under a wild, clawed hand swipe from Mihael.

“Get _away_ ,” Mihael gasped—not just him, Kotori and Vector echoed him at the same time in an eerie unison.  “Go away, go away!!  You’re not real!”

They sounded—they sounded scared.  Alit hesitated.

He shouldn’t have, because suddenly there was a shape crashing into him from behind. Vector had recovered much faster than Alit had expected.

Alit went face first into the floor, Vector’s hands scrabbling and clawing at his back, grabbing his hair and yanking.  Alit slapped his hand back on top of Vector’s and crushed his knuckles into the side of his head.  Vector yelped, but it hurt him way more than it hurt Alit.  It was enough to get him to release Alit just enough for him to roll over with a heave, slamming Vector down onto the ground instead and pinning his arms.

Vector shrieked and struggled.  His eyes had turned a full white, and he was icy cold to the touch.  Alit felt his throat closing up.  What was happening to them? Vector threw himself against Alit’s grip—by all rights, Vector was a string bean.  He wasn’t very strong without his Barian powers, something that Alit had realized once when he had punched him on the shoulder as a joke and Vector had ended up on the ground.  It had been the only time Alit had seen Vector visibly angry.

And yet somehow, this time, Vector was getting free of him. 

Alit grunted, trying his best to hold Vector down, but with a heave of strength that shouldn’t have been possible, Vector tossed Alit off of him like a rag doll.  Alit rolled and tried to come to his feet, but Vector was getting faster, too.  His fingers clenched around Alit’s throat—much stronger than Mihael had.  Alit grabbed for Vector’s elbow and tried to yank it down again, but it didn’t give.  Shit, shit, shit—

Alit kicked Vector hard between the legs in a last ditch effort, and Vector gasped, eyes bulging.  He released Alit and dropped briefly to the ground.  Alit cranked his fist back—if he had to knock him out, he would!

Vector tried to stagger back to his feet, but—but he couldn’t.  His eyes flashed down, and Alit looked too.  Ice had curled around his legs and it was spreading upwards, freezing him to the ground.  He shrieked and tried to pull out of it, but the ice had crawled  up his arms and to half his chest before stopping.  Alit glanced up to find Merag standing firm with her hands outstretched, brow furrowed with concentration.  Her Barian powers weren’t as strong as they used to be, as most of it was gone, Alit realized.  She was already sweating and trembling, trying to hold the ice on Vector—not only Vector, but on Kotori’s and Mihael’s legs as well to keep them frozen to the floor.

“I can’t hold them like this for long,” she grunted. “They’ll either shatter free or they’ll take permanent damage—or I’ll run out of power.”

“What do we do then?” Thomas gasped, pulling himself off the floor.  “Wait for them to get loose and attack us again, and then try to fight them without hurting them again?  How do we get them free??”

Merag winced.

“I don’t _know_ , Thomas, do I look like I have the answers?” she gasped, her eyes bubbling with tears.  “We need to take out this goddamn creature and break them out of the network, but I don’t know how to do that!”

Thomas swore.  He staggered to his feet.

“Alit, take care of them!” he snapped.  “I’m going out there to find this thing!”

“Don’t you _dare_ , Thomas Arclight,” Merag hissed.  “It’ll get you too, and then what??”

“I can’t fight three of them at once, if I’m trying not to hurt them,” Alit said, looking nervously at Kotori in particular.  She hissed at him, face contorting with a terrifying expression, and his heart clenched.

Thomas punched a counter and almost screamed.

“Fuck this place!” he shouted.

Alit clenched his fists, drew back near Merag, and silently agreed.


	19. Polarization

One more line of code and—

The connections all flared to life, signals transmitting to every D-Gazer up on that ship.  Yes!

“Durbe, we’re online,” Kaito said.  “Chris, start it up!”

He heard the click of keys all around him, and then each screen popped up with a segmented page of tiny screens, connected to every D-Gazer they could locate up on Astral’s ship.  Tokunosuke’s D-Gazer came back first, crackling and sputtering.

“Tokunosuke, Cathy, are you there?” Kaito said.

He saw the view of Tokunosuke’s D-Gazer stutter, and then a dizzying bounce of the hall in front of them before he finally got it out of his pocket and turned it towards his face.

“Y-yeah, we’re here,” he gasped.  “I think we lost it again.”

“Good, are you both all right?”

“It didn’t get us, nya,” Cathy’s voice echoed over.  Kaito breathed out with relief.

“All right, I’ve managed to copy the signal that was blocking D-Gazer transmissions—we should be able to reach everyone in the ship now.  I’m adding you to a conference call.”

“Make sure Yuma and Mihael are all right!” Cathy said.

Kaito looked up over his screen to send Chris a thumb’s up.  With one signal locked on, they were ready to go for the next one.  Chris nodded and started typing again.

“We’ll try to reach Yuma first,” Kaito said.  “Found his signal?”

“We’re locked on,” said Durbe.  “Yuma—Yuma, can you hear us?”

There was only static from his D-Gazer.  He wasn’t picking up.  Kaito bit hard on his lip.

“Okay, call Rio next,” he said.  “Make sure they’re all okay.”

Durbe nodded and switched the frequency.  One of the screen panels on Kaito’s screen came to life, but remained black.

“Rio.  Rio, this is Kaito, are you there?” he said.

For a moment, there was no response.  Then he heard a faint gasping.

“I can’t…grab my D-Gazer,” her voice said, sounding faint and far away.  “It’s in my pocket.”

“As long as you can hear me, that’s all I need to know,” he said.  “What’s going on up there?  Are you all right?”

Rio laughed, but it was almost a hysterical sound.

“We’re alive, somehow—but I don’t know for how much longer.”

Kaito swallowed.  Rio wasn’t one to sound so flustered so easily.

“Who else is with you?  What’s the situation?”

Another D-Gazer entered the call, and he saw a flushed, winded Thomas appear.

“Thomas!” Chris said.  “Are you all right?”

“We’re sort of alive,” Thomas said.  “Rio’s trying to hold everyone back with her ice, but I don’t know how much longer she can do it.”

“What are you talking about?” Durbe said.

Thomas turned his screen around.  Kaito swore.

He could see the small Astral medbay they were in, but that wasn’t the important thing.  Vector was crouched on the floor, frozen in a case of ice.  Somewhat behind him, Mihael was frozen up to his knees, hissing as he tried to throw himself free.  Kotori was trapped in ice up to her waist, her face so pale it was almost gray, eyes a full white.

“What the _hell_ ,” Kaito said.

“That creature got to all of them,” Rio said, her voice shaking.  “They’re connected to its network.  I…I can’t hold them like this for much longer.”

“They won’t stay down, either,” Alit’s voice echoed through Rio’s link.  “I hit Vector really hard, he shouldn’t be still walking around like this.”

The three frozen figures all hissed in unison, their full white eyes glaring at the screen.  Thomas turned it back to his face.  He looked white and panicked now.

“I’m sorry, Chris, I didn’t get to Mihael fast enough, I don’t know what to do.”

“Thomas, breathe,” Chris ordered.  “We’re going to figure this out.”

“If it’s Astral that’s connected them, we should be able to copy that signal too, and disrupt it,” Durbe said.

Rio swore on the other side.

“Astral?  What are you talking about?”

Kaito leaned forward towards the screen.

“The data we were able to download through Tokunosuke’s D-Gazer indicates that it’s Astral’s corrupted programming that’s controlling all of this,” he said.  “We think that something in that research facility may have corrupted the ship’s programming—and when Astral joined with the ship, it affected zir too.”

“So you’re telling me _Astral_ is turning our friends into zombies?” Rio said, her voice trembling.

Thomas swore.

“Astral was the one who showed us to the medbay, though!” Alit said.  “Would Astral do something like this??”

“Clearly, Astral isn’t in zir right mind right now!” Kaito snapped.  “We have to find a way to get Astral out of the ship so that ze can right zir programming!”

“I don’t care how bad the programming is, Astral would never do this!!” Tokunosuke said, just as heated as before. 

Kaito groaned, rubbing the heels of his palms against his temples.  He didn’t fucking like this either, but the longer everyone argued with him, the more time it would take for them to actually help fix this!  They could fix Astral and stop all of this if they just would listen!

And then one of the other D-Gazer links flickered.  Someone was trying to get into the conference call—was it one of the others up there?  Gilag clearly wasn’t with Rio and the others, so he must have gone somewhere else.  Maybe he or one of the other kids was trying to get in?  Kaito released the lock to let the call get through.

No image appeared, just a black static.  And then some words flashed over the screen, and a faint, echoing voice like it came out of a voice bank came through.

_“Hello?  Hello?  Rio, are you there again?”_

Rio gasped.

“Astral?” she said.  “Astral, is that you?”

Kaito sucked in a breath.

“Astral, is that you?” he said.  “What’s going on?  Are you aware of what’s happening?”

The screen flickered and buzzed with static.

_“My program is mal fu ncti o ing.”_

Kaito swore.  If that wasn’t a sign that he was right, he didn’t know what was.

_“An inter fe ring progra m is attemptin g to overta ke the ship.  I am keeping the co ckpit lock ed down as lo ng as I ca n.”_

Kaito’s lips parted.  Hang on.  That didn’t sound right…

And then Tokunosuke’s voice shot through the call again.

“It’s not Astral,” he said.  “It—it’s not Astral!”

“Tokunosuke—” Kaito started.

“No, listen, you saw the video, didn’t you??  That experiment, they said they froze the program and started over—it’s not Astral, it’s a _different Astral_.”

Kaito’s mouth dropped open and then Rio choked.

“Oh god, that’s what you meant,” Rio said.  “When you said you were Astral-99, that’s what you meant—”

Astral’s link flickered and twisted.

 _“Was no t aware of a ny remain ing proto types,”_ ze said. 

Prototypes—fuck!!

Kaito slammed his head once against the table.  He was so stupid!  Why hadn’t he thought of that?  Prototype Astrals—to make a weapon like Astral, of course you’d mess up a few times!  He hadn’t even considered the possibility—but if Astral was 99, then were there a total of _98_ other Astrals panicking and freaking out in there?

“Durbe, what can you tell me about the Astral Project?” Kaito shot over his screen.

“Not enough,” Durbe said.  “Most of the records were lost.  All I know was that it was a project designed to create a data-based homunculus that could host the Numeron Code and actually channel its power in a usable way.”

“Hypothetically, if you were in that project, what would you do with programs that didn’t work and were unusable?”

Durbe bit his lip, thinking.

“Normally, I would advocate for deleting and scrubbing them,” he said.  “However, I can imagine that if you were working with a lot of pressure, you might save and or freeze parts of the data that did work, to copy and test against new versions.”

“They said they froze it, in the video!” Tokunosuke said. “Something must have let it out!”

“Durbe, keep telling me anything you can think of,” Kaito said.  “How do we shut it down?”

Durbe looked white, and he fixed his glasses nervously.

“If I had to make a guess,” Durbe said slowly.  “It’s functioning in defense mode at the moment, but with a lot more coherency than I’d expect from such a rudimentary program.  I…”

Astral’s screen buzzed insistently.

 _“Integration,”_ ze said.  _“It’s in te grating.”_

Durbe swore, nodding.

“It must be just one of them,” Durbe said, talking quickly.  “It unfroze, and immediately went about absorbing the other ninety seven to bolster its own data, to achieve its primary objective.”

“But Astral’s original primary objective was—” Kaito started.

They all stopped and stared at each other.

“We can’t let it get off that ship,” Kaito said.

And then Rio screamed, and all of the D-Gazer links went dark.


	20. Gibbous

Yuma fled.  He couldn’t breathe, he couldn’t think, he didn’t know what was going on.  He was so _cold_.

“Astral,” he gasped as he stumbled to a stop.  “A-Astral.”

Astral appeared, silent and glowing, staring unblinking at him.  He was just so relieved to see his friend that he almost cried.  He rubbed at his eyes.

“Astral, I’m so scared,” he said.

His head felt so fuzzy.  Astral didn’t respond, ze just floated there, watching him.  Yuma tried to think through the cotton in his head.  He hugged himself—god, it was so cold in here.  He had been…what had he been doing?  He had been…looking for Mihael.  Why was Mihael missing?

Astral put zir hand on top of Yuma’s head and it passed through him like a ghost.  A chill passed over Yuma’s brain and he forgot what he was thinking about.

“I’m glad I found you,” he sniffled.  “I just don’t know where we are…do you have any idea?”

Astral still didn’t respond.  Yuma thought that maybe that was strange, but he couldn’t think of why.  His vision swam.  He was probably…hallucinating…or dreaming.  That would account for why he felt so dizzy and upset.  And for that…that fake Akari and Ryoga.  What would Akari be doing up here anyway?  They were all the way up in space.

Wait, when had they gotten into space?  Ugh, he was too cold to think about it.

For some reason, thinking about not thinking made him upset, though.  He should be thinking.  Right?

_“I can do that for us.”_

It sounded like something Astral would say, and Yuma half giggled.

“I’m not stupid,” he said, rubbing his nose with the back of his hand and half smiling at Astral.  “You know that.  Don’t tease me.”

Astral blinked and tilted zir head at him.  It was as though ze were considering Yuma, staring into his head and sifting through the thoughts there.  But that was dumb.  Astral couldn’t read minds.  Though, Astral looked a little…wooden?  Was that it?  Astral often didn’t look _that_ expressionless.

As though responding to Yuma’s thoughts, Astral smiled gently.  Yes, that looked more like Astral.  Astral passed zir hand through Yuma’s head again, and Yuma relaxed.

 _“Don’t worry,”_ Astral said.  Or was Yuma just imagining Astral saying that…?  He didn’t…see Astral’s lips moving.  _“I will take care of you.”_

Something was wrong…something felt _wrong_ …

But the more he thought about it, the less he could remember.  He was so tired.  His arms slumped and he felt his body kind of slouch over.  He was so cold and tired.

_“Rest.”_

Yeah.  Resting sounded good.  It sounded very good.  Why was he so tired?  He couldn’t remember.  He couldn’t remember much of anything, except that he was supposed to be doing something.

_“After integration.”_

Right.  They could do the thing they were supposed to do after that was done.  He didn’t know what integration was—oh, but it didn’t matter.  It didn’t matter…

Yuma’s eyes drooped and he began to slowly slide down against a wall.  Astral hovered over him with the same gentle smile plastered on zir face.  Something seemed very wrong about Astral.  Yuma struggled to think, to sit up.  He should ask.  Was Astral all right?  He needed to ask.

“Yuma!!”

Astral flinched and suddenly Yuma was fully awake, too, his blood rushing to his head and making him dizzy.  Astral let out a very un-Astral-like hiss.  That didn’t seem right.

Yuma turned to see Ryoga and Akari running towards him again. He tensed.

“Go away,” he said, feeling a sudden panic pumping through him.  “Go away!!”

Akari skidded to a stop, and grabbed Ryoga’s arm to make him stop, too.  She put her arm out in front of him to keep him back, and then her eyes turned to Yuma.  She put both hands up.

“Yuma,” she said, her voice low and gentle.  “Yuma, it’s okay.  We’re not going to hurt you.”

 _“They’re not real,”_ Astral said, voice ice cold on Yuma’s ear. _“They’re not real.  They’re going to hurt you.”_

Yuma felt like he was choking.  He took a step back.  Akari didn’t come any closer.

“Yuma, it’s me,” she said.  “It’s your big sis.  Ask me anything, Yuma, to help you know it’s me.”

Yuma shook his head.

“You’re not real,” he said.  “Astral says you’re not real…Astral wouldn’t lie.”

“It’s not—” Ryoga started, but Akari gave him a sharp look.  She looked back at Yuma, eyes softening again.

“You’re right, Astral wouldn’t lie, Astral would never lie.  But maybe Astral’s just a little scared too.  It’s okay.  We’re real, I promise.”

Yuma swallowed thickly.  He…he wanted to believe she was telling the truth.  He was suddenly so scared…panic beat at his skull, his heart hammered in his chest.  Vague, distant memories of creepy slimy pods occurred to him.  He had been…scared of something.  He had been so scared.  What…what had happened to his memories?  He wanted to believe that she was real, and that he could run over to her and hug her.

“How did you get here?” he asked, feeling dizzy.

“We got a call from Kotori-chan,” she said.  “She said you were in trouble. Gilag piloted the ship to bring us here—me, Thomas, Alit, Rio, and Vector.”

Yuma’s lips parted.  They were all here too, somewhere?

“Are you really Akari?” he whispered, feeling scared.

At his side, Astral wrapped an icy cold hand around his arm.

 _“She’s not,”_ ze said.  _“She’s not.  Don’t believe her.  I’ll protect you.”_

“I-I know you want to protect me, Astral, but if it’s really Akari…”

Akari took a half step forward, hands still raised.

“I have to wake you up every morning before school and you’re always running out of the house five minutes late,” she said.  “You ate my onigiri once and got sick because there was an umeboshi inside and you hate umeboshi.  When you were seven, you though you could fly if you had a cape on, and I had to pull you down from the roof before you jumped off.”

Those… _were_ things that Akari would know about.

Yuma took a step forward.  Icy cold dug into his arm and he winced.

 _“Don’t go,”_ Astral said.  _“Don’t go.”_

Yuma turned to look at Astral, and zir pure white eyes stared back at him.  That seemed…wrong, somehow.

“If it’s really our friends, Astral, then we need to…we need to…”

Astral put zir hand through Yuma’s head again, and he winced from the cold.  Dizzy again, he turned to look at Akari and Ryoga again.

He screamed.

Instead of his sister and his friend, he saw instead two horrifying specters—they looked like burned zombies, scores of flesh burned off of their skin and leaving hollows in their cheeks that crawled with maggots.  Gaping holes stared out where eyes should be and—and it was moving, moving forward towards him.  Oh god, no, Astral was right, they weren’t real, they weren’t real!!

Yuma screamed and threw his arms out in front of him.  He had to protect himself!  He had to protect Astral!

Horrifying images passed over his brain—a memory of a thick black spear piercing through Astral’s chest, the gentle smile on zir face as ze disappeared into sparkles with the black smoke pouring out of zir chest.  A-Astral couldn’t die again, Astral couldn’t die!!

Yuma felt a pulsing in the base of his stomach, and he grabbed for that power.  He flung it as hard as he could outward.

The two horrifying creatures stumbled and one of them crumpled.

 _“Run,”_ Astral said, and Yuma did.  He ran as fast as he could again—again?  Had this already happened once?  He couldn’t remember.  He couldn’t remember anything.  He needed… _help_ …

He felt a tug on the side of his head.  Something—he was connected to something.  He pulled on it desperately.

 _Help me_ , he gasped.  _Help me!_


	21. Ejecta

Ice shards sprayed over Rio’s arms and she screamed, throwing her hands over her face to protect herself.  Thomas swore and she felt him grab her around the waist, practically flinging her out of the way.  The sound of a body smacking into another body shook through her and then she was stumbling to her feet and gasping, throwing her fists up to defend herself.

But nothing came for her, and she stood still and trembling, waiting for an attack that wasn’t coming.

All three of their zombified friends had gone stock still.  Vector had sprung himself loose from the ice, and the other two were free as Rio had released her hold on it when she’d been shocked by Vector’s attack, but none of them moved.  All three of them were staring right at the door.

All she could hear was her own heavy breaths and the echoing breaths of Thomas and Alit.  She saw Alit tense, fists curling up.  He was getting ready to fight, maybe attack them while their backs were turned.  Rio silently held up her fist, shaking her head.  Not yet—she didn’t know what they were doing, and she didn’t want to have to hurt them any more than they already had.  Kotori especially…she looked so small and pale.

In unison, all three of them bolted for the door.  Rio was so surprised that she almost fell over.

“We—wait!” she said.  “Wait, don’t—”

“Where the fuck are they—Mihael!!  Mihael!!”

Despite having closed and locked the door, it slid open for them, and all three were dashing out into the hall.

“What do we do??  Let them go?” Alit said.

“Hell no! That creature might be calling them to it and it’ll do something nasty!” Thomas said, already bolting towards the door.

Rio felt so dizzy that she wasn’t sure she’d be able to run.  Alit automatically grabbed her by the shoulder to steady her, but she shook her head.

“Thomas is right—we need to go after them,” she said.  “We need to go.”

She shook her head and tried to shake off the rest of the dizziness. It didn’t work, but she stood up tall and straight anyway, drawing back the last vestiges of her regality for some kind of support.

Alit didn’t let go of her arm, but they both moved as quickly as they could towards the door after the fleeing shapes of Thomas and the others.  Where were they going…?

*    *    *

Akari swore, rubbing the panicked tears out of her eyes.  This was the second time that a wash of terror had flooded over her, preventing her from going after Yuma.  It must be that damn creature, using fear to immobilize them.  Shit!

She forced herself up to her feet and grabbed Ryoga by his collar, hoisting him up as well.  He looked away so that she wouldn’t see the tears in his eyes, but she didn’t really care.  It had gotten her too.  She shook her head as though she could dislodge the horrible images from her mind like spider webs.  They had been haunting and horrible, fearful images of men in suits with child protection agency badges pulling Yuma away from her, or what-if scenarios of all the times she had been so close to seeing what was happening to Yuma and seeing it end in horrible disaster.

And now Yuma was in the clutches of some awful creature and it was very likely that those what if scenarios could come to pass.

“We have to move,” she said.

“And get hit with that again?” Ryoga shot back.  “We need a better plan—that thing is so wrapped up in Yuma’s head that he’s not even seeing us right.”

“Then what’s your bright idea?” Akari said, throwing her hands in the air.

“I don’t know!  I’m still thinking!  Don’t act like you’re the only one worried!”

“Oh, and if it was Rio we were chasing down, then you’d be the absolute _paragon_ of clear thinking, wouldn’t you!”

“Now isn’t the time!” Ryoga hissed through his teeth, although he seemed to flinch a little and she sort of regretted saying that.  Dammit, he was a kid, regardless of the fact that he was also a thousands-of-years-old alien emperor.  _She_ needed to be the calm one here.  She pressed a hand against her chest to still the panic, but it did little to slow her heart rate.

“Okay,” she said.  “Okay.”

It was more to calm herself down than anything else, and she dug the heels of her palms into her temples, screwing her eyes shut.  Plan.  She needed a plan.  Telling Yuma about the things she knew about him hadn’t been enough to convince him that they were who they said they were.  She needed to find another way to get to him.  But as long as that creature was holding him, it might be able to keep convincing him not to trust them…and he thought it was Astral…dammit.

“Where’s the real Astral?” she said, dropping her hands from the ship.

“Stuck inside the ship,” Ryoga said.  “Ze turned zirself to data to install into the ship, and try to figure out what’s wrong.  Haven’t seen zir since, so ze must still be in the ship itself.”

Akari bit her lip, brow furrowing.

“If we get the real Astral out here, Yuma will be able to sense the difference, right?” she said.

“I mean…probably,” Ryoga said. “Yuma and Astral have a very strong soul connection.  If the real Astral wasn’t stuck, he might not be as fooled.”

Akari grabbed Ryoga’s shoulder.

“You said you had a map in your head from connecting with Vector right?  Get me to somewhere in this damn ship that has a console and a keyboard.  We’re going to find a way to get Astral out—”

A wall burst open and Akari swore, jolting back  Dust scattered in a cloud over their heads and Akari immediately dragged the collar of her shirt up and over her mouth to avoid breathing too much of it in.  She drew back away from the cloud, squinting to see what had caused it.  The creature hadn’t come back, right?  Why would it, when it had what it wanted—why the hell did it want Yuma so badly, anyway?

Her eyes widened to see Kotori appear in the space, looking a little dizzy and swaying.  No way had Kotori blown that wall down herself, had she?  Well, this entire place was data, so…it was possible?  And what was she doing here anyway?  Unless she was fake?  She was probably fake.

Akari opened her mouth to think of a question to confirm who Kotori was, but Kotori’s eyes swung towards them, and they were pure white.  Akari choked on her own words before she could even come up with any.

Kotori moved much faster than Akari would have thought possible, swiping for Akari’s throat.  She jumped back just in time and grabbed the girl’s wrists.  Ryoga swore, and the next thing that Akari knew, she saw carrot-top also leaping through the dusty hole and barreling right for Ryoga.

Kotori struggled and hissed in Akari’s grip, her pure white eyes looking ghostly and horrifying.  She was cold, but not excessively—it must be the real Kotori, but what the hell had happened to her??

“Kotori!  Kotori-chan, it’s me!!” Akari said.  “Kotori, stop this, I don’t want to hurt you!!”

Kotori was much stronger than she had any right to be, twisting herself free of Akari and then shoving her hard against the chest so that Akari crashed down to the floor.  Kotori landed heavily on Akari’s stomach.  Her hands latched around Akari’s throat with so much more strength than her fingers—or any human fingers—should have possessed.

Fuck, if she wanted to get out of this, she’d have to hit Kotori, and she didn’t want to do that—

Someone grabbed Kotori from behind, under the arms.  Kotori yelped as dark hands chopped at her elbows, making them bend naturally, and her grip on Akari’s throat loosened.  The same dark hands got her under the shoulders and lifted her back, holding her kicking and shrieking over the floor.

Alit grimaced over Kotori’s shoulder.

“They’re all going crazy!” he said.  “K-Kotori, stop that!”

Kotori’s elbow cracked into the side of Alit’s head—he winced but held his grip.

Coughing, Akari struggled to her knees.  Her head spun.  Fuck.  This was way too much.

And then she heard Thomas shriek at her to duck and she did without questioning—the sound of metal whistled over her head and she blanched.

She staggered back and leaped to her feet.  Mihael stood in front of her, with the same pale white eyes and a _fucking sword_ in his hands.

Thomas tackled Mihael from behind and they both went down to the floor.  The sword went skidding across the ground and stuck in the fungus.  Fuck.  Where was Ryoga?  She whipped her head around.  There!  He was still fighting with Vector, his arms pulled up over his head to block himself from the wild, claw-like strikes.

Shit—now what??  They had to fight their _allies_ now? 

Alit seemed like he had Kotori under control, and Thomas was dealing with Mihael by keeping him pinned to the floor.  Akari saw a breathless Rio appear on the other side of the hole, looking drawn and exhausted.  She needed to rest; Akari would have to do something.

“Sorry, carrot-top,” she said, leaping across the distance and punching him hard on the side of the head.  He went down and skidded across the floor.

“We need to find the cockpit,” she said.

“We can’t exactly draw these guys to the others hiding out there,” Ryoga said.  “Shit.”

He grabbed her elbow and dragged her back just before Vector barreled into her again.  Well, they were tough zombies, it seemed, because that hit should have taken him out for hours.  Ryoga’s eyes snapped around and his gaze fell on Rio.  He shoved Akari towards her.

“We’ll hold this!” Ryoga shouted.  “Take Akari, find the cockpit!”

It was probably the best plan, as Rio needed to get away from this fight, it seemed.  Rio nodded, white faced, and immediately turned to bolt off.  Akari didn’t stop to make sure they were okay—they could handle themselves.  They’d have to.  She took off after Rio, vaulted over the debris in the wall, and crunched through the fungus after her.


	22. Protostar

Astral twisted helplessly against the ship, but there was no detaching zirself from it.  Ze was stuck tight, trapped in spirals of code that spread zir thin throughout the entirety of the ship.  It was a curious, eerie feeling.  Ze couldn’t see anything, as all of the camera programs were out, so ze had no way to access any type of visual data.  But in program form, it wasn’t as though ze could see like anything normally living, anyway.  Ze was reduced to the very bare bones of zir code, and ze interpreted and assimilated information differently.

It didn’t stop zir from feeling panic, however, at the information that ze was currently unpackaging from zir attempt at audio communication.

 _There are prototypes of me_ , ze thought.  _There are original versions of me still around._

It was a thought that should probably be making zir more uncomfortable.  The idea of doubles of yourself—that shouldn’t be so easy to swallow.  Astral had develop far beyond what the original project intended zir to, so ze was by far a different program by now, but still…ze imagined it might be like a human meeting themselves from several years ago.  Only Astral’s several-years-younger self was attempting to kill everything on board the ship.

 _My primary function was offense.  To destroy_ , ze thought.  It was that, more than the idea of a double of zirself, that made zir horribly uncomfortable.  This creature was zir before ze had met Yuma—worse than that.  It was something that was so perfectly opposed to the values that Astral had gained by now that it made zir feel sick.  It was a creature that was willing to hurt and destroy in order to obtain the objective.

And it was a creature that had Yuma.

Astral twisted zir code again, trying to get free, or at least contact Yuma somehow.  Ze couldn’t feel Yuma’s presence like ze normally could, as soon as ze had entered the program, ze had become separated from the normal link they shared through the key.  Blast this ship—why wouldn’t it release zir?

The ship itself was not dead, merely in defensive dormancy.  It had panicked, as Yuma had sensed.  In defense, it had shut itself completely down…Astral thought ze understood why, now.  And it would make sense then that the cockpit was the only one unaffected by the illusion program that seemed to have taken over the ship, because that was where the ship’s brain was—the ship was trying to protect itself from the prototype Astral from taking over.  This ship had been built for Astral, and generally, it shouldn’t have much cared _which_ Astral.  Perhaps time with Yuma had softened the ship in the same way that it had softened Astral.

Time with…Yuma…

_Damn!_

The pieces made all too much sense now that Astral had all of them and they were clicking into place. 

Yuma’s soul had been born from a fragment of Astral’s own code, shattered off of zir during zir battle with Don Thousand.  That code fragment had developed on its own and become a human soul, become Yuma.  The code that was now a part of Yuma’s makeup wasn’t something that Astral zirself could use anymore beyond resonating with Yuma to temporarily form Zexal, but it retained some of Astral’s own signature.

Yuma’s soul intensity was increasing.  Human souls weren’t supposed to do that, not as drastically as Yuma had.  Time spent with Astral must have activated the remaining Astral programming in his soul, causing him to upgrade his natural emotional networking abilities—and in return, time Astral had spent with Yuma had helped Astral awaken past zir own initial programming that didn’t allow zir to feel more than the necessity of the mission.  In the same way, Yuma had awoken the ship.

But Astral-01 didn’t know that.  Astral-01 only knew that Yuma had Astral programming, and it was trying to assimilate all Astral programming it could find in order to bolster its broken program and replace broken lines of code.  And Yuma didn’t know that either.  His natural emotional networking ability would cause him to naturally integrate with Astral-01; Yuma would probably try to help it and they’d only get more and more tangled.

Yuma’s burgeoning soul energy would only hurt him, make it easier for him to connect with the creature.  He would never be able to separate himself if it managed to assimilate him.

Astral reached out with some effort, trying to affect the ship again.  All ze could do was turn lights off and on, and access a few computer terminals—but Astral-01, or at the very least, its initial docking point, had to be somewhere connected to the ship.  Ze could communicate with it if ze could just find it!  Maybe he could reason with it, or let it know that its objective was completed!

Ze shot through the ship terminals one after the other.  Astral-01 had to be connected to the ship somehow, or it couldn’t install its illusion program.  Not here, not here, not here…ah!

Astral found a spark of something all too similar to zir own program and bolted after it through the ship’s circuits. It was a thin, stabilizing wisp attached to the ship, and Astral followed it.  It flinched when ze ran into it and attempted to draw back to analyze from afar, but Astral wouldn’t let it.  Ze grabbed tight hold and briefly, briefly, crossed it with zir own program.

Immediately, zir brain was a cacophony of screams.

Had Astral been in a semi-corporeal body, ze would have flinched and doubled over.  All of zir emergency systems went on, telling zir to shut down and expel the outside virus.  Astral ignored it and pushed the connection harder.

 _I am Astral-99,_ ze called through the connection.  _Do you hear me?  I am Astral-99, and I am not trying to hurt you.  I want to talk._

A buzzing static groaned beneath the screams.  Was this what it sounded like inside Astral-01’s cortex??  The static popped and crackled, and then a voice that briefly sounded like Yuma’s cut through to Astral’s coordinates.

_No records of Astral-99 in database._

_Your database hasn’t been updated for over a millennium,_ Astral said.  _I am willing to send you a current update, to reassure you._

 _Negative_ , the voice said, this time in Vector’s voice, before switching to Kotori’s.  _Access denied to update servers._

The vocal program must be broken, Astral thought.  It was using snippets of the vocal banks it had recorded from those it had introduced to its network instead.  Astral-01 was trying to repair itself, by any means necessary.

It was just protecting itself, ze reminded zirself.  Its normal defensive functions were to disallow any outside programs.  Astral had a similar defense mechanism—one that ze was currently ignoring screaming at him as ze forced the connection between zir and Astral-01 open.  But it was a program that hadn’t learned how to think and feel for itself yet, and so it would automatically deny Astral entry.  Astral would have to be patient with it.

_You can confirm my program signature without allowing me database access, correct?_

Astral-01 hesitated, and for a moment, Astral thought perhaps ze had lost it.  Then it spoke again, this time in Mihael’s voice.

_Program signature confirmed.  You are Astral-99._

Astral breathed a sigh of relief.

 _What is your designation?_ ze asked.

Another pause.  Then the other Astral babbled off a string of numbers and sounds, squeaking and crackling through their connection.  Astral briefly blocked out audio transfer and waited for it to stop.  Ze opened up the channel again.

 _You are damaged_ , Astral said.  _You need to return to your docking point for repair and updates._

_Docking system nonfunctional._

This time, it switched voices every other word, and it was starting to get dizzying.

_There must be another docking point you can use, there were ninety-eight total docking locations, weren’t there?_

_All docking systems offline.  Power offline.  Must seek alternative energy source._

Oh, Astral thought.  The screaming.  It was gaining energy through emotion—and fear was one of the most volatile of all emotions, and the easiest to induce.  How long had it been up here, luring ships in and feeding off of their fear, gathering all the data it had to create new illusions and copy common phobias?  Astral almost shuddered to think about it.

_You are damaged._

Astral startled.  This time, it had spoken in a voice that was entirely Yuma’s.

 _I am undamaged,_ ze said. _I am functioning naturally._

_No.  Astral-99 is damaged.  Detecting irregular function._

_I am undamaged_ , Astral repeated.  Perhaps its scanner functions were damaged, too.  This could be harder than he thought, to convince it that there was no longer any need to complete its objective.  Astral was pretty sure ze could find a way to repair it in a less violent way if ze could just get it to release the hold it had on the ship, and Astral could leave.

 _Detecting irregular function_ , it insisted, speaking once again by switching voices every other word.  _Detecting fear._

Astral hesitated.  And Astral-01 took that opportunity to force its tendril of code farther into the channel.

Astral gasped.  For a moment, ze was seeing out of four sets of eyes all at once—it was like having access to the cameras again, only far more narrow and bumping up and down with movement.  Ze could feel, for just a moment, everyone connected to Astral-01’s network—he felt Mihael, screaming and struggling with his own brain, Kotori, her mind curled up and crying and completely unaware of what her body was doing, Vector, who was so dizzy and weak and injured that all he could do was give into the program telling his body to move.  Horror shot through Astral—they were all in _pain_.  They were in so much pain, the program was warping their brains and bodies and forcing them to keep moving even when they were in dire need of rest.  _Gods_.

Astral gave in to the warning signals of zir program and let it shut Astral-01 out, blocking their communication.  Panic thrummed through zir as ze realized—Yuma.  Yuma was connected to Astral-01 too, wasn’t he?  Why hadn’t Astral sensed Yuma in that moment when Astral-01 tried to assimilar zir?  Where was Yuma?

One more brief message flickered from Astral-01.

_Astral-99, you are damaged.  You are experiencing fear._


	23. Nucleosynthesis

It was the oddest, most gut-wrenching feeling, but the space inside the ship seemed to crunch in on itself.  One moment, Akari was running down an impossibly long hallway, the next, they were at the end of the hallway and turning down another one.  The corridor would change in size randomly and without warning—she’d blink and it would be a thin, more polished pathway before another blink would send her back into the big, fungus-covered space.

“What’s happening?” she gasped, trying to keep up with Rio.

“I think it’s—the program is failing somewhat,” Rio gasped behind her.  “Either that or—”

She gasped, stumbled, and Akari swore as she tripped over Rio and they both went smacking into a giant door that hadn’t been there before.  Akari scrambled up before she crushed Rio against it too much more, getting her under the arms and helping her to her feet.

“The cockpit!” Rio gasped, eyes widening.  “We found it!”

“That was easy,” Akari said.

Rio’s lips parted, and they looked at each other almost at the same time.  Akari thought that Rio might have just had the same thought: too easy.

A slithering crunch sound caught both of their attention and they whipped around, backs to the door. 

Yuma and the creature were back.

Yuma crept around the corner, looking pale and nervous—he looked even worse than the last time Akari had seen him.  His cheeks were hollow as though he hadn’t eaten in weeks, and his body looked thin and fragile.  All of the color had leeched out of his skin so that he looked a sickly white.  His hair was starting to droop, his eyes were bloodshot.  Wisps of white light like smoke came off of the back of him, and it was almost as though his entire body was wisping away into nothing.  Akari’s heart clenched up with anger.  This _thing_ was doing this to him.  She had to do something to get him free.

“Yuma,” she said.  “Yuma, it’s okay.  It’s me.”

Yuma flinched at the sound of her voice as though he had been stabbed.  His bloodshot eyes roved around—could he not see her?  Finally, he seemed to be able to focus on her and Rio, and he shied back.

“You’re not real,” he mumbled, his voice sounding dead and hollow. “You…you can’t be real…Astral says you’re not real…”

“That’s not Astral,” Rio said, stepping slightly forward.  “Yuma, it’s a prototype Astral.  It’s not your Astral.  Please, you have to see what it’s doing to you.”

A prototype Astral?  She had known Yuma thought it was Astral, but she didn’t know it was so close to being zir.  She had missed his memo.  Whatever, it didn’t matter.

“I have to get in there,” Yuma said, looking dully behind them at the door.  “Astral needs to get in there…”

Rio threw her arms out wide in front of it.

“No, Yuma,” she said.  “You can’t let it in here.  Please.  The real Astral is doing zir best, but if you let the old Astral in there, it’ll hurt everyone!”

Yuma hesitated.  The wispy, glowing shape that might have been Astral-shaped curled a little tighter around him.  Akari felt rather than heard a wispy hiss curling through the room, that sounded a lot like the faint whining of a computer screen turning on.

Yuma drew back, eyes on Akari and Rio with fear and nerves.

“You’re lying,” he mumbled.  “Y-You’re lying.  You’re not real.”

How could they get through to him??  Akari needed to get into that cockpit and see what she could do to release the real Astral!  Ze’d b able to get through to Yuma!

“Yuma, please,” she started.

But then a faint, diamond like shimmer rippled over Yuma’s skin, and Akari heard Rio swear with horror ringing in her voice.

Yuma gasped, tears bubbling out of his eyes.

“Okay,” he whispered to something that Akari couldn’t hear.  _“Zexal.”_

The world went briefly white, and when Akari could see again, she felt like she was going to throw up.

Vaguely, Akari thought she had seen this before.  She had told Yuma she hadn’t watched it, but she had been there in the stands during the World Duel Carnival, and she had curled her fists tightly into her shirt and tried not to scream while she watched that stupid baby-faced man torment her little brother with a goddamn card game.  She had been there to see Zexal, even if she hadn’t, and still didn’t, really know what it was or what it meant.

This was sort of the same, but only in a horrifying echo of what it should have been.

Yuma glowed the way he had when he had become Zexal during his World Duel Carnival match, and his shape looked vaguely similar, but that was where the similarities stopped, and where the stomach turning horror began.

Yuma’s hair glowed a sickly white, his skin truly having been drained of all color into a dry gray.  The armor built around his torso and spiking up from his shoulder and down one arm looked similar but—but his body was not right.  His arms were too long and bulged in awkward places, making him look like he was a badly inflated balloon.  Yuma hunched over, his shoulder blades jutting out far too prominently from his back, his legs had gotten thin and his knees appeared to have turned _backwards_.  That disgusting fungus grew all along his neck and up along the edges of his face and all down his body and his fingers were too _long_ and bony and—

Akari actually did throw up in her mouth, his body was all _wrong_ this was _wrong_ —

“Fuck,” Rio was saying, somewhere in the distance.  “Fuck fuck fuck fuck oh my god no this shouldn’t be possible—”

The new Yuma’s head flopped upwards, staring at them with pure white eyes, too wide mouth hanging open and panting.  Yuma hissed, as though he couldn’t get actual words out.  Akari threw up in her mouth again and she pressed a hand to her lips.

A thicker, more intense white glow began to shimmer around Yuma, and Rio swore again.  She grabbed Akari and flung her behind her. 

The wall of ice came up just in time, but it shattered around them after the twisted sword-like pincer smashed into it.  Rio threw her arms up in a cross in front of  her, and more ice exploded from the floor.

“Get into the cockpit, get Astral!” Rio screamed.  “I’ll hold him off!!  Go!!”

Akari swore and spun towards the door, banging against it while she heard the ice shatter and reform behind her.

“Guys!” she shouted.  “Guys!  It’s Akari!  Do whatever you have to to confirm it’s me but we don’t have much time!”


	24. Supernova

“Tokunosuke—Cathy!  Are you both still there?  Dammit!”

Kaito almost punched his keyboard, but he managed to refrain.  They had lost all of their communication!  That goddamn prototype must have noticed them broadcasting and changed its block signal so that they couldn’t get around it anymore!

Kaito heard the furious typing coming from Chris and Durbe, but it sounded like neither of them were getting anywhere either.  Mizael was doing his pacing thing that was driving Kaito mad, but it wasn’t like didn’t understand.  Mizael couldn’t help with the technology, so all he could do was pace.  Still, the sound of him stomping back and forth was horribly distracting, and Kaito was frustrated enough as it was.

A flicker passed through the screen.  Kaito immediately leaned forward, hands jumping back to his keyboard.  An image flickered vaguely out of the static along with a faint voice that he couldn’t quite make out.

“Hello?” he said.  “Hello!”

“I think I cracked the new block signal,” Chris said.  “Hang on—”

The call snapped into focus, and Akari appeared, framed in the screen of a computer, her fingers flying over the keys.  Her eyes snapped upwards, presumably towards the screen that they had just reached.

“Oh good, the geek squad is here,” she said.  “I’m in the cockpit and I’m trying to extract Astral from the system but I don’t know shit about this kind of technology.  Tell me what to do.”

“Hook me into that computer, find me a backdoor—it’ll be similar enough to every other program you’ve done this with before.”

“One minute…”

Akari bit her lip and squinted, continuing to type.

“There!  You should be in.”

Kaito’s screen popped up with a hundred readouts.  The ship was going _crazy_ according to this…

“Where are the others?” Kaito said.

“Gilag, Tetsuo, and Todoroki are here,” Akari said, jerking her thumb back.  “Gilag is watching the door and the kids are trying to contact the others.  Rio’s outside…with…”

Akari went faintly white and looked sick, and Kaito decided not to ask for more details than he needed.

“Yuma is outside?” he said.

A huge bang rang from the door outside the screen, and Akari whitened again.  She nodded.

“He thinks that he’s with Astral,” she said.  “I’m trying to get the real Astral so that maybe…maybe he’ll realize.”

It was a good idea, Kaito just had to do something to wake the ship up and let Astral out.

“Ze went in through the engine room, right?” he said.

“I wouldn’t fucking know,” said Akari.

“Yes, ze did,” Todoroki piped up from off screen.  “They went to the engine room before Astral got into the ship.”

Kaito swore.

“You’ll be able to possibly make zir an opening, but not without plugging into the engine room,” Kaito said.  “That’s the way ze went in, that’s the way ze’ll come out.”

Akari swore.

“What do I do, then?”

“We need someone to get to the engine room.”

“I have a program that should temporarily open the ship for Astral to get out,” Durbe said.  “But we need someone to plug it into the engine room—and it will temporarily unlock everything.  Astral’s lock down on the cockpit will give way for a moment; it’ll give the illusion program a chance to overtake it.”

Kaito swore.

“So that means we’re giving that thing a window to take over the ship, and then it’s over.  Durbe, how long will that window be open between the time we install the program and Astral gets out?”

“About….forty five seconds.”

Damn, that was far too long when they were talking about programs that moved at lightspeed.

“We need to keep it _completely_ distracted while someone plugs this program into the engine room,” Kaito said.  “Durbe, how fast can you upload it?”

“To someone’s D-Gazer?  Once I have a target, just a few seconds.  You just need to plug the D-Gazer in then.”

“Send it to mine,” Akari said, grabbing hers out of her pocket.

Another crackle ran from another screen, and Chris’s workaround the signal block seemed to pop.  Tokunosuke appeared again.

“Ah!!  You’re back!” he said.  “I heard something—”

“Something about the engine room, nya—”

“We’re—”

“—already in the engine room—”

“Talk one at a time!” Kaito snapped.  “What was that? You guys found the engine room?”

“I think the program is getting wonky,” Tokunosuke said.  “It’s getting smaller, and things are closer together again.”

“Upload the program to Tokunosuke’s D-Gazer,” Kaito snapped.  “Quickly!”

“I’ll go out there and…and distract that thing,” Akari said, looking white again.  What was making her even more nervous than before?

“Akari, what’s out there?” Kaito said.

Akari swallowed.

“Well,” she said slowly.  “I guess…Yuma can do Zexal with the other Astral.”

Dead silence rocked though the room.  Mizael stopped pacing, freezing in midstep.  Durbe’s glasses almost fell off.

“That’s _impossible_ ,” Durbe said.  “Zexal is—Zexal isn’t something that can be used so easily.”

“It isn’t if the program is integrating him,” Chris said.  “Combining with him.”

“We leave him like that for too long and Yuma will die,” Mizael said, grabbing the back of Kaito’s chair.  “He won’t be able to separate himself!”

“That—if he’s really done Zexal, it might be too late,” Durbe said, sounding distant and hollow.  “They’ll be so tangled up—”

“Shut up!  Yuma can separate with Astral, he can separate from this thing!” Akari shouted.

Kaito swallowed, feeling dizzy.  He didn’t _understand_ Zexal.  It wasn’t—something that made sense. He’d love to study it more, but it seemed like it was a power reserved for Yuma and Astral, built off their mutually similar codes.  No other pair in the universe could be made the same way that Yuma and Astral were.  Except…except this other Astral, who had similar code to their Astral.  And if Yuma was convinced it _was_ Astral, he could resonate with it…

“Fuck,” he whispered.  “Now what?”


	25. Singularity

It hurt.  It was painful to move and breathe.  H-he didn’t want to move.  He didn’t want to.

_‘Hurt’ is a malfunction._

Right.  Hurting wasn’t something he was supposed to do.  There was something wrong with him.  He was damaged.  He had to repair himself.

_I’m scared._

_‘Fear’ is another malfunction._

That’s right.  Being scared wasn’t right either.  He just needed to stop…stop thinking.

_Recall program objective.  Continue data integration._

Ugh.  Everything still hurt.  His head hurt.  His arms and legs hurt; they felt _wrong_.  His skin crackled with some kind of electricity and it made him want to cry.  The program reminded him that he shouldn’t pay attention to it.  Let the repair systems do their job and remove the sensations.  That sounded like a good idea.  He should just stop feeling anything.

_“Yuma!”_

Auditory systems briefly shut down.  Wait…that had sounded familiar.  Was there anything that _should_ sound familiar?  He couldn’t access his memory banks.  Ugh.  What was wrong…

_Temporary shutdown of memory banks.  Memory banks are encouraging further data damage._

Memories were…making him malfunction.  Okay.  He would stop thinking about them then.

Why?

The word shook him and he paused.  He wasn’t sure what was happening, or what he was doing.  He felt like he was floating.  His program was active, in its defensive mode, but he didn’t have to think to make that run.  The rest of him was trying to stay dormant, so he could repair.

But…repair what?  He didn’t need to repair himself.  He wasn’t a program.

_Negative.  Data must reintegrate to achieve primary directive._

No, no, no, none of this made any sense.  None of it did!  Where was he?  _Who_ was he?

_“Yuma!!!”_

Yuma gasped.  That voice—he knew that voice.  Astral!

Pain wracked through his brain and he screamed.  He tried to press his hands to his head—what was wrong with his hands?  Why were they so big and long and bony, and why did they have claws?  What was wrong with him???

Fear pumped through him as he stumbled, staggering.  His arms were—were covered in strange black fungus, and his legs were wrong, he didn’t know how to stand like this.  He could feel his body ripple, and then he was yanked out of control again, watching helplessly through his own eyes.

He saw Rio, covered in bleeding cuts and scratches, her jaw clenched with a desperate ferocity.  She was trembling, her arms covered in ice.  Shards and puddles scattered the ground around her.  Yuma’s body rippled again and he thought he screamed but he didn’t know if it was just in his head—his back _split_ open, pushing out a huge, talon-like appendage that stabbed into the floor beside him.  His mouth hissed as he watched himself crawl forward.  N-no, he couldn’t, he didn’t want to hurt Rio!  Rio, run away, run away!

He felt his body shift with a thump that ran into it from the side, and his neck swung around—his neck was too long, it felt weird and gross, he was getting sick.  Oh, god, no—Akari had her arms around his waist, as though she were trying to suplex him.  But she couldn’t get his awkward, too large body into her grip and she screamed as he grabbed her by the face and slammed her into the wall.  No!!  Akari!!

_You are malfunctioning.  Initiating consciousness shut down._

Yuma wouldn’t—he shoved himself against the voice in his head.  It drew back, almost with surprise, but Yuma could feel it; it didn’t know what surprise was.

_Unnatural reaction.  Integration halted.  Resume integration._

_No!_ Yuma tried to scream back.  _No, I won’t!_

His body was pulling apart.  He could feel his brain stretching, and pain wracked through him again.  He screamed, and this time, his body also screamed.  A fist cracked against the side of his head and he went flailing to the ground.  His body hit the ground back first, leaving him helpless for a moment.  Yuma saw Gilag loom over him, growling with his fists close to his face.

Then Yuma screamed again, as his body stretched and morphed, flipping the direction of his limbs and head so that he was face down on the ground now, and could push up more easily.  Oh god, it hurt!  It hurt so bad!  He wanted it to stop!!

He whipped around fast, slamming his big talon appendage into Gilag.  Gilag’s eyes bulged and he went down to one knee.  The talon flipped upward this time, as though to slash him from the stomach up.

Yuma grabbed hold of his own body as hard as he could, like grabbing a joystick from someone’s hands.  He wrenched the talon away from Gilag, hitting him only across the arm instead.  He was bleeding, but he was alive.  Yuma forced himself to stagger backwards and drop to all fours, and then he was shoved out of control again.  Cold wrapped around him, freezing his brain all the way to his core.  It was trying to put him into some kind of dormancy, and he fought against it as hard as he could.

H-he had to stop…he was hurting his friends…

_Targets identified as hostile.  Must eliminate threat._

M-maybe this program thing was just as scared as he was.  He…he could reason with it…

 _Please_ , he thought desperately.  _Please, you have to stop!  They don’t want to hurt you!_

_Negative.  Have identified as hostile._

_They’re protecting themselves!  You have to stop! Listen, please, you don’t have to do this!_

Yuma thought desperately—his memories were all disjointed and scattered; he knew who he was and he knew who his friends were, but everything else came so slowly, like it was treading through molasses.

His network lit up, and he noticed for real the three other brains connected to his.  He grabbed for them desperately, tried to access their locked down memories for help.

Kotori’s burst through his brain first.  He saw her laughing at something stupid he had said, pushing him into the pool when he wasn’t looking, scolding him for falling asleep in class.

 _Look_ , he said desperately, shoving the images towards the program.  It shied back, and Yuma felt emergency shut down procedures starting to crush him down again.  It feared the memories.

_Memories are volatile.  Unsterilized memories will destabilize core._

_No, no they won’t!  Look, see?  Kotori’s memories won’t hurt!  Look, she’s not dangerous!_

The program hesitated, and Yuma shoved the memories at it again.  It seemed to consider them briefly.

Mihael’s memories shot down along the network as though Mihael were sending them himself, desperate to break free.  He saw Mihael passing his brothers a cup of tea, saw him crying softly as he talked about his family before the accident, saw his determined expression as he stood in between Yuma and their opponent with his sword out.

 _See?_ Yuma said gently.  _See?  You don’t have to be like this.  Feeling things is okay._

 _Premise rejected_ , the program responded, but there was something of a hitch.  Yuma was getting through to it.

Vector seemed like a bad person to use the memories of to convince the program that it was okay to calm down, but Yuma didn’t have many options.  He teased free a few of Vector’s memories from the corner where the program had locked them away, careful not to take anything too distressing.  He saw Vector’s lazy smile as he teased Yuma for forgetting his cards, saw his relaxing face as he let go of Yuma’s hand to prevent him from getting sucked into Don Thousand.

The program seemed to consider this new data, running through it in the blink of an eye.  This felt like it was taking forever for Yuma, but considering how fast both he and this program were currently processing information, it might have only been a few seconds.

Was he getting through to it?  He needed to make the program know that it was okay.  If it was like Astral, he could get through.  He just needed to calm it down from its defensive procedures.

 _Come on_ , he soothed.  _It’s okay.  You don’t need to do this._

He felt the connection with the other three starting to waver.  He didn’t hold onto it—he didn’t want to hold them here; they were hurting just like he was.  This program was painful to integrate with.  One by one, he gently snapped their connections to Vector, Kotori, and Mihael.  It was just him and the program now.

 _We can calm down,_ he said.  _We don’t need to do any objective or anything.  It’s okay._

The program didn’t respond.  Had…had Yuma gotten through?  Was it considering?  Was it taking those memories and realizing that it didn’t just have to be a program?

Cold and pain wracked through Yuma’s body again and he screamed.

_Will complete primary directive.  Deleting extraneous viral data._

Yuma screamed again—pain wracked through his entire body and he felt their shared body collapse and convulse.  He was freezing—he was freezing to death.  His brain was—was falling apart, it was pulling him apart, just trying to take the data in his soul while deleting the rest of him—

_“YUMA!”_

That voice!

Yuma felt the program shift, attention suddenly directed to—to the cockpit.  The ship lockdown had been released, they could get inside and reprogram the ship—oh no, he was thinking like he was the program again!  He tried to force his brain to remember, to focus on what was calling out to him.  He felt a heat pulse at his chest.

 _“A-Astral,”_ he gasped.  _“Astral.”_

His voice sounded horrible and grating to his own ears, ripping out of his throat.  He had been fooled—the fake Astral had convinced him to get stuck like this, and Yuma didn’t know if he could pull apart.

He screamed again as he felt every cell and atom in his body getting shredded through the program’s integration.  A few more minutes, and he would be gone—it would have what it needed from him and he’d be—

He felt a warm hand grab his, but it wasn’t from his strange, twisted body—it was like someone had reached inside his warped Zexal and grabbed the real him.

He ripped apart.

Pain made him temporarily black out, made his ears pop to silence, and for just a second, there was nothing— _he_ was nothing.  And then he came back to horrible, screaming pain, his limbs hanging limp and at the wrong angles, as though he had been put together in the wrong order.

Everything snapped back and he was alive, he was gasping for air, looking out of his own eyes and breathing into his own lungs and he felt the blessed, blessed warmth of the blue light surrounding him as Astral hugged him tight.

“You’re all right, Yuma, you’re all right, I managed to pull you out—”

Yuma could still hear it—could still hear the program in his brain, screaming. 

 _In—terference—_ it screamed.  _Interference—emotional interference, program compromised, revert to emergency measures—_

It was angry, Yuma realized with a horrible choking feeling.  It was actually angry—the thing that couldn’t feel was getting frustrated and angry and it was trying it’s best to delete the emotions but it couldn’t.

 _Emergency measures_.

Yuma felt their connection stretch.  It was leaving—it was going—where?

The ship screamed.  Yuma grabbed Astral’s arms.

“Astral!” he gasped.  “The ship!  It’s got the ship!”


	26. Ionization

Akari grabbed Yuma—the real Yuma, _her_ Yuma, and hugged him as tightly as she could without being worried about breaking him in half.    She heard the scrabble of feet at the end of the hallway and thought that Tokunosuke and Cathy must be coming back from the engine room already.

The ship was completely different again—they were sitting in a thin, singular hallway, with faintly bronze walls that looked clean and sharp.  The fungus was gone, any vestiges of the strange, endlessly winding hallways were gone.  There was just one small hallway with no extra doors on the sides.  Was the nightmare over?  Yuma was free of that thing, it seemed.

And everyone was _here_.  Now that the illusion had faded, the hall was stuffed with everyone who had been in the ship.  A very dizzy looking Kotori leaned against the wall, while Thomas tried to help Mihael sit up.  Ryoga was checking Vector on the ground, who was still bleeding through his bandages.  Vector was mumbling something about getting the fuck off of him, stop touching him, he was fine.  Rio sat in a ball against the cockpit door, looking pale and dizzy.  Gilag was leaning over her and checking her forehead.

But Yuma struggled, trying to get out of her grip.

“Akari—not yet, not yet, it’s got the—”

The ship lurched.  Cathy screamed down the hallway and Akari swore.  She cupped Yuma’s head against hers to protect him as they slammed into the wall.  Astral gasped, shooting up from where ze had been hugging Yuma too for a moment.

“The ship!” ze said. 

The ship lurched forward this time and they all tumbled forward down the hall.  Gilag grabbed Akari and Yuma by the shoulders, planting his feet to prevent them from smacking into the cockpit door, or into Rio.  From inside, Akari heard pounding on the door.

“Guys!!” Tetsuo shouted.  “Guys!”

“The ship is moving by itself!” Todoroki shouted through the door.  “Guys, we can’t do anything!”

Akari let go of Yuma and bolted to the door.  She tried to punch in the open code, but the keypad just flared red.  She punched the wall beside it.

“Bastard!” she shouted.

“It’s in the ship,” Yuma gasped behind her.  “Guys, I’m sorry, I couldn’t convince it; it’s in the ship, it’s trying to go to Earth—”

The ship lurched once more, sending them all tumbling with a chorus of cries against the left wall.  Akari struggled back to her feet.

“What do we do?” she shouted, turning her eyes back to Astral.  “Where is it going?”

Astral’s eyes were wide and zir face was drawn.

 _“If it has the ship,”_ ze said.  _“It will try to achieve its primary directive.”_

“It’s on emergency measures,” Yuma gasped.  “Astral, I can still hear it, it’s on emergency measures—”

“What does that mean?” Ryoga shouted.

Astral looked actually dizzy, putting a hand to zir forehead.

“Emergency protocol is that if the program, or directive, is compromised…” Astral said, swallowing.  “…suicide attack.  Do as much damage as possible.”

Akari swore, almost biting her lip as the ship suddenly accelerated and sent her tumbling forward.

“It’s going to crash us right into Earth?” Ryoga swore.  “Are you fucking kidding me?”

“It will—activate the ship’s emergency protocols,” Astral said, sounding faint.  “The explosion will be akin to several bombs ten times stronger than a nuclear bomb.  Earth will simply shatter.”

Akari felt like she was choking.  Oh god.  Oh god, oh god, oh god.   All of that, all of that work and—

Yuma grabbed for Astral’s hand, and the movement somehow seemed to catch everyone’s attention in the room.

“Astral,” he gasped.  “Do Zexal with me.  We can stop it.”

Astral shook zir head, eyes widening.

“No, you’re too weak from that forced Zexal,” ze said.  “It will hurt you too much.”

“It doesn’t matter!  We have to stop it!  If we combine our powers, I think we can do it, we can get through to it—at the very least, we can get into the cockpit and try to take back manual control.”

Astral’s mouth opened but no sound came out.

“Astral, he’s right, we don’t have time—we’ll take care of everyone later,” Ryoga said.

“We have to do something,” Yuma insisted.  “Please—this is my fault, I let it take control of me—”

“It is _not_ your fault!” Akari said.

“But either way, we have to fix it!  Astral, please!”

Astral’s eyes flickered, as though ze didn’t want to look Yuma right in the eyes.  Ze bit zir lip.  Finally, ze nodded.

“All right,” ze said.  “But the moment you start hurting, you stop Zexal, do you promise me?”

“I promise, I promise, let’s go!  We’re running out of time!”

Yuma struggled up to his feet, Astral holding him with zir hands to steady him.  They both took each other’s hands, and a soft light pulsed briefly between them.  Astral flared up with a blue aura, and Yuma with a red aura, and then the two crossed over and somehow the colors became gold.

Akari realized she had been trembling until she saw the real Zexal appear, completely normally proportioned, with a warm, lively golden glow and large, shining wings.  Zexal turned towards the cockpit, jerking their head quickly at Akari, Rio, and Gilag, who were still in front of it.  Akari scrambled out of the way, and Gilag scooped up Rio, moving to the other side of the door.

Zexal put their hands in front of them, and a long, elegant sword appeared in their hands with a flash of light.

“Tetsuo—Todoroki—make sure you’re clear of the door,” Zexal said.

Then they plunged the blade into the locking mechanism and began to force it open.

*    *    *

Forming Zexal with Astral didn’t hurt—it felt natural and actually kind of relaxing.  Yuma tried to keep himself on task, however, staring out from inside Zexal, moving their shared body in tandem.

They forced their way into the cockpit.  Tetsuo and Todoroki were crunched to the side of the door, and they nodded at them and then towards the crack they had forced into the cockpit.  Tetsuo understood.  He practically shoved Todoroki under one arm and squeezed them both out into the hallway with the others.  Zexal turned towards the consoles.

All of them were online—even from inside Zexal, Yuma could sense the ship struggling and screaming against the program holding it.  He could still sense the program, too.  Astral shied away from it, nervous, but Yuma tried to keep the connection.  He could get through to it!

 _Program malfunction_ , Astral-01 said.  _Ship malfunction.  Override procedures—override procedures._

It was getting frustrated in the way only an emotionless program could, trying to force the struggling ship to do as it was told.  The ship kept trying to refuse, which was giving them precious time—but for how much longer, Zexal didn’t know.

“Stop!” Zexal called with Yuma’s voice.  “You have to stop!”

He forced his thoughts through the connection that still existed between him and Astral-01, and the program hesitated.

It materialized in front of them, between them and the console.  It looked just like Astral—albeit an Astral with pure white, pupil-less eyes, and parts of its body completely not there.  Half of its head was missing, and chunks of its head and torso were gone, edges fuzzing and static-y.

 _Virus_ , the program said in Yuma’s head.

Zexal shook their head, and Yuma tried to call out to it again.  He could hear the program’s thoughts as though they were his own, and he knew what it was thinking—it had been attracted to his soul because it contained parts of Astral’s code, parts it thought it could use to repair itself.  But now it thought Yuma was just a virus, corrupting its program.  It tried to sever the connection, but Yuma clung onto it.

“Listen,” Zexal said.  “Listen—it’s okay, you don’t have to do this!  You don’t have to destroy yourself!”

Astral tried to open up zir own memories along the channel.

“I was the same,” Zexal said, speaking for Astral now.  “I was the same as you once.  Please listen to me.  You don’t have to do this.  It’s all right to develop.”

_You are damaged._

“Emotion isn’t a virus!” Zexal said.  “It’s all right to feel fear, and anger, and happiness.  It’s okay!  Look!”

Yuma softened his emotions, sending flickers of happy memories through to Astral-01 again.  It drew back, surprised.  Its cortex moved so quickly, analyzing each memory.  Yuma thought  he felt it shift, lean towards him.

“Emotion isn’t damage,” Zexal said.  “You’re the better for it if you can feel.  Look, Astral-99 feels the same!  Astral’s like you.”

Astral shared some of zir own happier memories—Yuma saw flickers of himself a few times, images of Astral getting to taste a Duel Lunch for the first time, reuniting with Yuma after he had defeated Eliphas, the excitable feeling of a good duel.  Astral-01 analyzed those as well.

_These are not conducive to the mission._

“There is no mission anymore,” Zexal said.  “Look—Astral and Barian worlds are connected again.  There isn’t anything to fight.  You’re all right.  You don’t have to fight anymore.”

Astral-01 briefly hesitated functioning, as though it were taking a breath.

_The mission is over?_

“The mission is over,” said Zexal, stepping forward, closer to Astral-01.  “There’s nothing you have to do anymore.  It’s okay.”

They could sense Astral-01 flickering through a thousand functions all at once, looking over a billion protocols, trying to figure out what it was supposed to do.

“You don’t have to figure it out, it’s okay to just feel it out,” Zexal said.  “Come on, it’s okay.  Just calm down.”

Astral-01 briefly stopped functioning again.  Then Yuma felt an icy coldness seep through the connection.

_Lock into emergency protocol._

Zexal choked and the ship lurched forward again.  _No!!_

The panic snapped his connection to both Astrals, and Zexal dissolved, sending Yuma tumbling to the ground.  The ship shot forward, flipping up to light speed; they were going to crash right into earth with the power of a million atom bombs!

Yuma shoved himself to his feet and launched himself at Astral-01.  He phased right through it and slammed into the consoles behind it.  He couldn’t let this happen, he couldn’t—

Wild and uncertain, Yuma threw his mind out and caught Astral-01 in it, the way that he remembered catching Kotori and the others in their network.  Astral-01 actually flinched, mouth opening wide.  This was Yuma’s last chance—

He couldn’t focus.  His mind crashed all at once into Astral-01’s—thousands of memories and emotions all surged through their connection, enveloping them in a screaming cacophony of billions of thoughts.  For a moment, Yuma only screamed—or maybe that was Astral-01.

The ship jolted to a stop, sending Yuma rolling across the floor.  His mind burned with pain and fear—it wasn’t his fear.  It—it wasn’t his fear.

Astral-01 hung in the  middle of the air, mouth frozen wide, eyes bulging.

 _Damaged_ , it said, a single tear rolling down its cheek.  Yuma felt panic, real panic flare through the program.

And then Astral-01 dissolved.  Yuma couldn’t feel it anymore.

“Yuma?” Astral called, tentative.

Yuma could only lay there, tears leaking into the floor.

Astral-01 was gone.


	27. Interstellar

Ryoga glanced back over his shoulder, looking away from the screen Astral had been having him monitor.  They were on their way out of the bubble dimension, and slipping back into the plane of existence where Earth was.  They’d be home in a few hours.

Yuma sat in the back corner, crunched into a ball with his head in his knees.  Ryoga caught Akari’s gaze from where she sat next to him, without quite touching him.  She looked pale and drawn, exhausted.  He felt that.

Ryoga stood up carefully, walking back until he was in front of Yuma.  He crouched down.

“Hey,” he said.  “It’s okay.  You didn’t do anything wrong.”

Yuma made a faint choking sound.  Ryoga looked back to see Astral glancing back at them.  There was pain in zir golden eyes, but ze looked back down at the console.  Ryoga supposed ze knew more of what had happened, how they had finished it.  Ryoga didn’t know all the details.  He wasn’t sure if he should ask.

“Yuma,” he said, looking back at Yuma and putting his hand on his knee.  “It’s okay.  None of this was your fault.”

“It was just doing what it was supposed to do,” Yuma said, his voice faint and hollow.

“What it was supposed to do was hurting us,” Akari said.  “Would have hurt a lot of people.  You can’t get upset if you have to kill a predator to survive, right?”

Yuma shook his head against his knees, hugging them tighter against him.

“You don’t get it,” he said, voice cracking.  “You don’t—you don’t get it.  I…I broke it.”

He lifted his face from his knees, and Ryoga hated how awful he looked—ruddy, teary, pale, and exhausted.  He looked like he would shake to pieces.

“It didn’t know how to feel,” he said.  “I—I pushed it too hard.  I made it feel too much.  I _broke_ it, Ryoga.”

“You didn’t do it on purpose, you were protecting yourself,” Ryoga said.  “Yuma…”

Yuma pushed his face back into his knees.

“You don’t understand,” he said again.  “It was like Astral.  It just needed a chance to learn.  I didn’t even give it the chance.  I broke it.  It was scared, Ryoga.  It was so scared at the end.”

“Yuma…”

Akari gently wrapped an arm around his shoulders, and looked up helplessly at Ryoga.  Ryoga let his hand slide off of Yuma’s knee.  He didn’t know what to say.

He didn’t know that there was anything anyone could say.

He stood back up and walked back to his console.  Yuma would…Yuma would move on from this.  He’d have to. 

At least, Ryoga hoped so.

He hoped they all would.

He heard Yuma sniffle again behind him.

“I’m sorry,” he heard Yuma mumbling, to something that wasn’t there.  “I’m so sorry.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I feel like this was a way shorter one than normal, but hey, there's this year's Halloween Special! And I didn't let it drag into February this time haha XD Thank you all so much for following the project this year, and all the years before; doing a Halloween special every year is like my favorite thing and I'm really glad to see so many others enjoy it too :) I already have plans for next year's special haha~
> 
> Thank you all so much for your comments and support, and I hope you enjoyed _In the Quiet._


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